Commentary from WPR prior to Mubarek's resignation

The New Rules: Guiding Egypt Into the Axis of Good

By: Thomas P.M. Barnett | Column

While there remains a ton of things that can go wrong with the unfolding revolution in Egypt, there's a strong case to be made that America has been handed a gift. Because most of America's concerns center on security issues, I'll frame the argument for why this is the case in tactical, operational and strategic terms, and then finish on the new Axis of Good that may result.

U.S. Should Take a Back Seat in Egypt

By: Nathan Field | Briefing

Over the course of the two-week-old protests in Egypt, the American media has been consumed with debate over how the U.S. should react. An emerging consensus argues that Washington should support the protesters' demand that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resign immediately. Such a step would not clearly serve American interests and has too many potential negative repercussions.

The U.S. and Egypt: The Limits of Hegemony

By: Kenneth Weisbrode | Briefing

The Obama administration's reaction to the dramatic events in Egypt has reminded optimists of the Bush administration's reaction in 1989 to revolutions in Eastern Europe and pessimists of the Carter administration's reaction a decade earlier to Iran's revolution. Washington's air of ambivalence, however, evokes a perennial condition of international relations, especially when those relations fall into the category of patron and client.

Over the Horizon: Egypt's Army and Military Professionalism

By: Robert Farley | Column

One simple rule of revolution is that regimes fall when their security services refuse to fire on protesters, while uprisings often falter when security forces do go ahead and shoot. Thus far the Egyptian army has not violently put down the protest movement. Why? The answer is complicated, but it's likely that changing norms of military professionalism played a role.

Global Insights: International Implications of the Egyptian Crisis

By: Richard Weitz | Column

Although even the immediate outcome of the unrest in Egypt remains uncertain, its potential inernational ramifications are worth assessing, considering Egypt's importance to regional and world politics. Perhaps the most-pressing question raised by the possibility of an end to the Mubarak era is whether a new Egyptian government would respect the 1979 peace agreement with Israel.

World Citizen: Globalization Fuels the Arab Uprising

By: Frida Ghitis | Column

Observers of the uprisings in the Arab world have focused with great excitement on the role played by new media, suggesting the events demonstrate the power of social networks to build a revolution. But what made the long-simmering popular resentment against the government come together with such force was the convergence of disparate factors, all driven by the process we know as globalization.