Egypt Snap Analysis: The Army Allows Mubarak a Moment to Defy the Burning

After the confusion and drama of President Hosni Mubarak finally emerging to confront events, it was a relatively quiet few hours across Egypt. The Army's appearance on the streets, after the protesters' defeat of the police in Cairo and other cities, stopping the immediate sinking of Mubarak and the regime. The scenes of demonstrators welcoming the soldiers --- and getting some acknowledgement in return --- indicated that the President's authority is in serious jeopardy, but it also gave him a breathing space from the destruction of his country, if not his legitimacy.

Mubarak seized on that breathing space to give a defiant, I'm-staying response last night. He did so even as he made gestures toward his sympathy for the demands on corruption and unemployment, as he came close to portraying his martyrdom in service to Egyptian citizens for decades, and as he jettisoned one Government to install a new one today.

The opening sentences of the statement could not have been clearer in their political message, even if they were close to surreal in their assertion: the protests were possible, Mubarak said, because of him. Because he had given freedoms to the Egyptian people, they could enjoy them (and, he would continue, abuse them) in their four days of demonstration.

And now, he was saying, it would stop.

So to today. The headquarters of Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party are burned across the country, including --- to spectacular visual and political effect --- in Cairo. The National Museum, in another symbolic moment, was saved not by the Government but by protesters, who made a human chain, and by the appearance of the Army.

Last night Mubarak stood almost alone. And what no one was quite saying is that his fate is not in his hands. The immediate issue now is whether the military will hold the line for him and whether the protesters will accept that. 

Unless there is something more from the President --- not just some economic payouts to the people but a clear sign that he and his son Gamal will be giving up the prospect of continued power, with promises of significant reform in the political system --- the demonstrations will continue. And at that point, the question will be whether the Army sides with those demonstrations or turns its guns upon them.