According to one usually reliable news source on this kind of thing - Stratfor - there was a meeting of the supreme council of the Egyptian army, with Mubarak not present, and Mubarak was being hustled to some other home of his, away from Cairo. Their read was that the Army was preparing to force Mubarak to resign.klr wrote:I wonder what happened behind the scenes?
That appears to be the U.S. administration's read, too. To me, that makes it less credible, not more credible - Panetta has a very good record of misreading political situations. Still, that could have been the expectation of the Egyptian army, and Mubarak could have pulled a fast one when actually making his speech.
As best I can tell, Mubarak said two substantive things. First, he would turn over much of his power to the vice president, Suleiman. Second, he was going to lift the martial law under which Egypt has operated for the past 30 years before the election.Crumple wrote:what did he say about removing some parts of the constitution?
Ironically, lifting martial law should be exactly what real pro-democracy advocates should want. Unfortunately, most of the demonstrators don't really care about democracy. I suspect the army doesn't really want martial law lifted either.
Stratfor thinks a military coup is likely, and that such a coup will appease the mobs.