U.S. Marines on standby in Spain and Italy for duty in Egypt

Supposedly these 2,000 Marines are ready to deploy within an hour of notification.

I’m not quite sure what the plan is, unless this is just some typical State Department procedure to secure U.S. Embassies. 2,000 Marines are enough to rescue the Ambassador and her entourage if they arrive in time, but certainly they can’t operate in Cairo neighborhoods and defend individual citizens.

The Egyptian Army was rumored to have said that they would intervene sooner rather than later if Civil War looked likely. I did see one tank the other night, but it was unsurprisingly stationed outside the Air Force Base. This morning on Twitter there was talk of a few tanks in the southern suburb of Ma’adi (home to many foreigners), but I’ve seen no sign yet of any full-blown pre-emptive moves by the military. No doubt they have contingency plans, but it’s unclear what those might be, or what the aftermath of such an intervention might look like.