by Patrick Appel
American spokesmen have provided brief remarks on Egypt but Hillary Clinton is expected to make a statement any minute now. Marc Lynch's advice to Washington:
The administration has to get out in the next few hours with a strong public statement by a senior official, such as Secretary of State Clinton, which clearly lays out that using violence against citizens is a U.S. red line and which goes beyond "urging" or "hoping" that the Egyptian government responds. It's really important that the United States be clearly and unambiguously on the right side of these events, and not wait and see too long for it to matter. The public message should be paired with blunt private messages to the Egyptian government that there's no going back to business as usual, regardless of whether Mubarak rides out this storm in the short run.
His rationale:
Mubarak's regime has been wounded at its core, and even if he survives in the short run the regime will have to make major internal changes to regain any semblance of normality. An Egyptian regime which spends the next years in a state of military lockdown will hardly be a useful ally. It's not like there's an active peace process to compromise. The Islamist scarecrow shouldn't work, given the Muslim Brotherhood's limited role in events (despite the efforts of the Egyptian regime to claim otherwise).