so far, military and pentagon officials as both secretary gates and admiral mullen expressed today before the house armed services committee are very encouraged and pleases with the professional and, quite frankly, restrained course that the egyptian military has demonstrated so far. admiral mullen, is he firing a shot off the bonoing with the drive to cut some sacred cows, defense being one of them, he s beak saying let us make the decisions, we know what we re doing? they re concerned for two reasons. if there are in fact attempts as admiral mullen said to try to save a buck here on the backs of the egyptian military, that would be a mistake because that could jeopardize that very valuable military to military relationship. there s also concern that if the egyptian military drags its feet in this transition period and takes, assumes power for too long a period of time and riles up those protesters that we saw,
tremendous confidence the egyptian military is a organized organization. it is in their interest to make sure this doesn t happen. i expect the military to military relationship both with the united states and other allies will remain strong, and the egyptian military will be sensitive to bring democracy to egypt, and they will be careful to prevent extremists from infiltrating and taking advantage of the current chaos. you have the controversy over the time line of when elections should be held. they re supposed to be in six months, but mohammed elbaradei is saying you need at least a year to have fair and free elections. what s your take? i mean, how soon can it happen in a fair manner? reporter: well, the problem here is when we think about having free and fair elections, i think there s a natural passion, if you will, to say, why not do it right away?
do not turn on the people. and i m sure that s another avenue where the united states has influence because we do have a close military relationship. nicholas burns very good of you, live tonight in newton, mass. we thank you. coming up, the man who says today s actions on the egyptian s government part were political suicide. i got into one of the best schools in t country! [ both screaming ] i got into one of the most expensive schools in the country! [ male announcer ] when stress gives you heartburn with headache. alka-seltz gives you relief fast.
mubarak this nation nation of egypt is america s friend in the middle east. the fact that moubarak, fox has confirmed, is stepping down, where does it leave the united states? listen, you know, it leaves the united states with a very different middle east, because even if, you know, liberal liberals come to power in egypt, i don t think this is going to look necessarily like iraq but it might look a little bit like turkey, insofar as while they will still be our friends, while we will still have military to military relationship with them, they will be a less reliable partner for washington in the middle east. so that, itself, presents some difficulty for us. but alternate the end of the day democracy is a good thing. jon: a less reliable partner for the united states, that is the thinking of david schenker from the washington institute of
years to american policies not only the largest and most powerful arab state and there cannot be a two front war as he egypt takes itself off the confrontation line. a close ally of the united states since 1979 jimmy carter broke ared the egyptians and he has been at peace with the state of israel and it s fundamentally transformed the strategic advantage to those centrist moderate states, including jordan and shares with israel as well. so instability in egypt, seen on the canal and peace treaty with israel, largest and most powerful arab state. all of those factors fundamentally reshaped the political landscape, if the situation went dramatically stopped. dramatically south, that s the real key. will the transition be relatively smooth? will the military that has a stake in the peace treaty, a stake in the relationship with the united states, continue to play tig role and will a new