special correspondent martin fletcher. he s lived and worked in the middle east for more than 30 years, nbc s tel aviv bureau chief. you heard john ray s report. give me a sense of what you are envisioning that s happening right now and where this thing s going? there s a strong possibility that the department is involved. it s not likely that the egyptian, the administration has given up. the idea they would maybe even empty the jails themselves or allow them to be emptied, allow anarchy to take hold in the streets so the people will say, enough of this, we need those police back and we won t fight them. that s certainly a strong possibility. it is the way things happen in that part of the world. that s for sure. it is clearly getting down into the psyche of just the average citizen. i don t know if you heard my interview with ahmaad ramez. he said this is what we know to be true, even the media is reporting that the government is behind this, they re pulling back the police offic
that are gathering in cairo s main square. this as thousands of protesters for yet another day are ignoring the government s curfew. it s already put into place. they are definitely out there still. military helicopters are seeing, flying very close overhead. clearly you see tanks on the move. egyptian president hosni mubarak is vowing to reform his government. he fired his cabinet, appointed his first ever vice president. are the changes enough for the embattled leader to stay in power? secretary of state hillary clinton was asked that question this morning on meet the press. there are many, many steps that have to be taken. it s not a question who have retains power. that should not be the issue. it s how are we going to respond to the legitimate needs and grievances expressed by the egyptian people. and chart a new path. clearly, the path that has been followed has not been one that has created that democratic future, that economic
paul axalt, the senator of nevada, very close to marcos and said your time is really up. we will no longer support you, you ve got to move. that was the breaking point with the philippines. whether it s dick durbin or someone else very close to president obama that he needs to consider sending that kind of personal envoy to mubarak to tell him what the stakes will be if he really cracks down on his people. i think we re at a crescendo moment which is very much like what happened in tiananmen and iran. it could break another direction. i think it s important for the president to get his back game right. there s one thing about the public game. what he s saying privately is far more significant. and steven, you re bringing up something that makes absolutely perfect sense, but do you see a threshold over which the situation in egypt will cross and at that point that is when dick durbin or somebody, as you suggest, close to the president goes to hosni mubarak and says, end game. that s w
targeted to vent their anger at. they re not fighting the army because they respect the army. they do not respect the police. they are looked at as a weak institute. the more police there would be on the streets, the more chance of violence. what we have seen is rather good-natured demonstrations for the most part. there hasn t been real violence. absolutely. tunisia may have been the catalyst for all of this upheaval and the uprising in egypt. clearly there have been a lot of frustrations fermenting, siege g i seething underneath the surface for years and years now. do you have concerns about that? egypt has always fought to maintain its position as being the leading arab power. and for the most part, that s what it is. people do look to egypt to see how to go. that authoritarian regime, not
replace mubarak and to that, what is the best and worst case scenario for the united states? especially since in the past they ve supported mubarak. right. i think we re hedging our bets, to be honest. we re planning for mubarak to potentially stay and do the unlikely thing of hurrying on reforms, which i don t really buy. alternatively i think if our embassy and attaches are doing the right thing, we re reaching out to other possible conveners and looking at other international groups that can provide stability but give the population in egypt the sense we re going to help them seriously move through to fair and free elections and move in different directions. i would raise one model that s important for president obama to consider. when president marcos was in a very similar situation, did he not want to go. it s clear, mubarak does not want to go. he d be gone by now if he did. the way president reagan sent a signal to marcos was he sent