With Mubarak's resignation there is a huge danger that the military, which was handed/seized control, will want to stay in power. This has happened time and time again, and not just in the Arab world.
Up until now President Obama has been toeing the line, trying to play both sides because he was in an impossible position. However, now that the January 25 Revolution has succeeded in its main goal of removing Mubarak from power, Obama can finally come out and wholeheartedly support the revolutionaries.
President Obama must now come out and say that the whole world, led by the US, supports the democratic revolution of the Egyptian people. He should thank the army for its restraint and cool-headedness during the revolution. But he must, MUST, say loudly and clearly that the US will not support prolonged military control of the country. He should warn any overly enthusiastic army officers from overstepping their mandate. He should remind them that the Egyptian people will not stand for another dictator and neither will the United States.
This is a time for real leadership and this moment it too important to allow it to be hijacked like so many others in the past. That doesn't mean President Obama should tell the Egyptian people who to pick or what to do. It means that the United States, as the leader of the Free World, should make it clear that it will not accept a roll back of this Revolution by ambitious army officers. Since the US holds the purse-strings to the Egyptian army, it has quite a lot of pull and it is time we put that to good use.
It has been reported that President Obama is going to give a speech in about a half an hour. Let's hope he gets the message.
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