Mubarak's Base

For online resources; see: accuracy.org/online-resources-on-egypt

FAWAZ GERGES

Gerges is director of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics. He writes in a piece in today's Independent:
"The regime's base is extremely shallow in comparison to the
opposition, which represents an overwhelming majority of the population.
The regime has alienated most of the rising social and political
classes: centrists and democrats, leftists, nationalists, independent
Islamists, and the Muslim Brotherhood. They're left with about 10
percent of the country, the uppermost echelon of the population."

SEIF DA'NA

Seif Da'Na is an associate professor of sociology and international
studies at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside specializing in the
Mideast and North Africa. On January 25, the first day of protests in
Egypt, he was featured on an IPA news release stating that the popular
movements indicated the "beginning of a new era" in the region.

He notes that economic policies pursued by the the regimes being
protested were favored by the Western powers and the International
Monetary Fund.

GHADA TALHAMI

Talhami is emeritus professor in the department of politics at Lake
Forest College. Her books include "The Mobilization of Muslim Women in
Egypt" and "Palestine in the Egyptian Press." She said today: "The U.S.
is still oblivious to the fact that the de-legitimization of the Mubarak
regime has [also] been due to its total lack of leverage over the
Israeli-Palestinian question and its
weakness and inability to exercise any influence over U.S. policy in the
Middle East as well. Egyptians cannot fail but notice the abject
weakness of their regime on the international arena when the U.S.
administration publicly admonishes their leaders for human rights
violations, as welcome as this may be, while it refrains from doing the
same to its other ally (read client state) in the Middle East, namely
Israel. ... So, this uprising is not only about democracy and civil
liberties, it's about the loss of autonomy in international affairs,
forcing a military-style state of stability on Egypt while the region
around it is a living example of instability and constant state of war."
She is not available for interviews on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

JASON BROWNLEE

Brownlee is currently a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center. He is
working on a book on U.S-Egyptian relations. He will be in Washington,
D.C. on Monday. He is also associate professor of government at the
University of Texas, Austin. Brownlee's previous book was
"Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization." He said today: "Despite
the talk of an ambiguous and fluid situation in Cairo, reports from
demonstrators paint a vivid picture -- of a plain-clothed government
crackdown abetted by a loyalist, U.S.-funded military. Hundreds of
thousands of demonstrators have defied Mubarak's violence, though,
vowing to hold Liberation Square until Egypt is liberated."

"If U.S. officials don't want Egypt to be Iran 1979 [the Iranian
revolution], they should prevent an Iran 1953 [when the U.S.
re-installed the Shah and deposed the democratically elected Mohammad
Mosaddegh]. All it would take is cutting their client-military loose and
supporting indigenous democratization."

"Rather than embracing the demonstrators and Egypt's democratic
awakening, Obama seems to be trying to salvage as much as possible of
Mubarak's brutal security apparatus." Brownlee was one of the organizers
of a recent petition of academics and others calling for a new U.S. foreign policy.