Mubarak stepping down?

You probably all knew this before I did, since I was out having a hearty Polish meal for a couple of hours on this cold, dark afternoon. But apparently MUBARAK IS STEPPING DOWN TONIGHT.

There was really no other way to get out of this, short of a brutal crackdown. Two things still unknown…

*Will the protestors settle for Suleiman as the transitional figure? They had said no, but perhaps the removal of the President will be enough to satsify them.

*How voluntary was this on the President’s part? There were suggestions that the message title (Communique #1) is the sort of language used during military coups.

My guess is the probably standard one: the military decided to pull the plug to save themselves. Not a bad decision, in fact, and it also helps the country.

But how will the street react to the solution?

It’s also interesting to imagine the President’s state of mind at the moment. He doesn’t seem to realize that 30 years in power, all of them under emergency law, is, to put it mildly, a problem. Given that, he must feel like a well-meaning and sucessful leader who was suddenly stabbed in the back by everyone around him both nationally and internationally. I think that’s the wrong assessment, but it must be how he feels. What a strange mental place to be in, especially when deserted by probably almost everyone.

UPDATE: The language in the news stories suggests a less-than-voluntary departure, with the army “taking steps to save the nation,” etc.

If Mubarak really plans to step down tonight, I hope he does it graciously, in a way that allows Egypt to move forward.

Another hypothesis: the strikes were the last straw. They might still have been toying with a crackdown on the people in Tahrir (especially after Saudi Arabia offered to pay whatever aid the U.S. might cut). But mass labor actions across so many economic classes was really going to make this an unmanageable situation, and it might have taken years for the economy to recover.