thing well. that s essential to this equation. we have in fact, made sure that the army doesn t go for a massive crackdown. right. paul: urging that. absolutely. in fact, the big difference between iran in the summer of 2009 and egypt right now is the fact that iran was not in our field of influence, that and egypt is in our field of influence. and the kid gloves treatment, if you will, that restraint of the army and police of the mubarak has something to do they are under the gaze of america and the officer corps of the egyptian army which is reliant on american training and american weapons and american economic and military aid does not want to break the bonds with the united states. paul: one more question for we don t have a lot of time. but the freedom agenda of george w. bush, is this uprising a vindication of his policy. he is a modest man as we know. he is in comfortable retirement. but he can definitely claim
welcome to the journal editorial report, i m paul gigot. the uprising in egypt turned bloody this week as supporters of president mubarak clashed with protesters in cairo s liberation square. in errant view mubarak blamed the outlawed muslim brotherhood for the violence and said he would like to step down right away but fears his resignation would plunge the country further into chaos. the director of the middle east studies program at the school of advanced international studies at johns hopkins university. he is also an adjunct fellow at stanford s university hoover institution and frequent contributor to the wall street journal. we appreciate. thank you very much. paul: have you been predicting trouble in egypt for a long time. close following the country for a long time. everybody is saying mubarak has to go, even mubarak. this is a seminole moment for the egyptian people. the house of mubarak has fallen.
box of this whole equation. this is the black box. this is the unknown. the role of the army. the states in egypt belongs to the army. the state belongs to the army that pulled off the great revolution in 1952, allegedly the state revolution of sadat and the heir of the army is a dominant infusion not only politically and militarily, the security is also huge economic infusion. so you are saying that no government would be able no transition would be possible and no successive government could govern successfully without the consent of the military. the military is essential. because mubarak outgrew the military. he became bigger? yes. in his own mind at least. absolutely. he outgrew his country. i think the military could pull back the country from the brink. and i think the military takes its role very seriously like the pakistan military and turkish
i urge the government and a broad and credible representation of egypt option civil society, and political factions to begin immediately serious negotiations on a peaceful and orderly transition. that was secretary of state hillary clinton on thursday calling for an orderly and speedy transition of power in egypt. we re back with more on the crisis there. joining the panel this week wall street journal columnist and deputy editor dan hen gear. matt commence ski and mary o-grady. behind the scenes saying to mubarak time to go. is that the right policy it? is time for him to go. i think that s been clear for the last few days.
finally come around to a policy more engaged. it s a stham 2009 wouldn t interfere in affairs. smoother transition. not too late now what you are seeing now is a new consciousness in egypt about democracy. i think this should become somewhat optimistic that they can carry this out. paul: dan, what do you think. i pretty much agree with all of this with one caveat. i agree with what secretary clinton said with a speedy transition and matt as well. what i don t agree with and i think we should support the opposition wholeheartedly as an extension of the bush doctrine. what i don t agree with is that the united states should be seen publicly pushing mubarak out, allah the shaw in 1979. i think that s a mistake. why not? well, first of all, it will be seen as deposing him by every leader in that region. whatever we think that we do still have real interest there