Egypt is in chaos economically and socially. Today will be the 13th day of the people’s uprising in Egypt. Mubarak has snubbed Western leaders’ belated call for immediate change, implying he should go, and was, at least till yesterday afternoon, hanging on. Had they reacted more positively towards the millions of Egyptian demonstrators demanding for Mubarak’s resignation earlier, it might have made all the difference.

Besides, had President Obama been more demanding with regard to human rights in exchange for the billions of dollars in aid to Egypt up till now, the ‘pressure cooker’ would not have exploded.

It is too late for America to realise that “the status quo is simply not sustainable”, as Hilary Clinton, remarked yesterday.

“There was always some other reason why we didn’t want to cross him (President Mubarak),” Edward Walker, former US ambassador to Israel and Egypt, told the BBC’s Matt Frei when asked why President Obama had up till now been accommodating towards Mubarak.

Peace in the Middle East is a crucial factor. When the Camp David Accords led to the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty, American aid began pouring into Egypt. The Obama administration sent $1.6bn in 2010. It also planned to ask Congress for the same amount for 2011; whether current events will change things remains to be seen.

Feeding the West’s fears, Mubarak told ABCs Christiane Amanpour that if he left the country immediately the Muslim Brotherhood would take over and, ironically, that it would lead the country to chaos. While Mr Walker told the BBC that although Israel was right to be anxious about what is happening in Egypt “it (Israel) tends to exaggerate the strength of the Islamists”.

But it is Israel’s and the West’s fear of Muslim extremists that resulted in ambiguous messages coming out of the US and Europe last week. Although the people’s revolt against oppression was being recognised, Mubarak was not being urged to go by Western leaders.

Those messages only encouraged Mubarak and gave him time to dig his heels in. After the jets flying low overhead the crowd failed to intimidate the demonstrators and use of the army was not going to happen, the Mubarak camp came on to the streets on Wednesday and we saw violence for the first time, with thugs on horseback whipping the peaceful demonstrators, in the streets of Cairo on our television screens.

“If we see on the streets of Cairo today state-sponsored violence by thugs hired to beat up protesters, the regime will lose any remaining credibility it has in the eyes of the watching world, including Britain,” British Prime Minister David Cameron told reporters.

It is important to note that before Wednesday with millions of Egyptians demonstrating there was no violence. Besides, the people themselves were organising vigilante groups to protect their neighbourhoods from looters, since the police had disappeared from the scene after the first day of mass protests.

The army’s non-confrontational stance towards the demonstrators asking Mubarak to go continues to baffle. It has after all up till recently underpinned the repressive police state. Why is Mubarak not using the army to stifle the revolt against him? Is it part of the regime or not?

Current events indicate that the army is sitting on the fence and keeping a neutral stance. It is maintaining security within Tahrir Square and ensuring that agents provocateur are kept out and only peaceful demonstrators enter the square. People entering the square have to show identification and that they are not armed. The army is also keeping Mubarak supporters away from the much larger number of anti demonstrators.

Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman, assured ABC’s Christiane Amanpour that the army would not be used against the demonstrators. But Mubarak’s back was against the wall and he would have used the army if he could, so why didn’t he? Is it because the Egyptian’s army ties are closer to Obama than Mubarak?

It is no secret that the White House is in close contact with army leaders and Egyptian army personnel were frequent visitors to the US. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said on Thursday that Washington remains in daily contact with the Egyptian military. Meanwhile, Obama’s messages are getting clearer by the day and he said on Friday “There is no room for suppression.”

Suleiman also told Amanpour that he would be meeting with opposition leaders, but nobody seems to know who these people are. Mr Crowley said the meetings, between Vice President Suleiman and some opposition members, “were not broad enough or credible enough to meet the clear aspirations of the Egyptian people”. On the crisis he said, “The longer this goes on without concrete action that the people of Egypt can see, the greater danger of ongoing confrontations and violence.”

Concern mounted in the West when it became known, after the Wednesday violence, that Mubarak’s security forces were targeting journalists. On Thursday, Mr Crowley told a press conference “the attacks on journalists are part of a concerted effort and do not seem to be random events”. Meanwhile, Egyptian journalist Shaheera Amin resigned from her post at the state-run news channel, Nile TV, in protest at what she said was one-sided reporting and she ended up joining the revolt in the square.

Mr Crowley also said that the attacks on anti-government protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square by armed supporters of President Hosni Mubarak on 2 February (Wednesday) have been traced to “elements … close to the government or the ruling party,” but he added, still giving Mubarak some slack, “I don’t know that we have a sense of how far up the chain [of command] it went.”

At another press conference Hilary Clinton said, “Freedoms of assembly, expression and the press are pillars of an open and inclusive society. Governments must demonstrate their adherence to these rights especially in times of crisis... The Egyptian government, including the army, has a clear responsibility to protect those threatened and to hold accountable those responsible for these attacks,” she said.

Clinton urged the Egyptian government to immediately begin negotiations that will lead to a peaceful and orderly political transition with a “broad and credible representation of Egypt’s opposition, civil society and political factions”. “The Egyptian people expect a meaningful process that yields concrete changes,” Clinton said.

It was also reported that the Obama administration is in talks with top Egyptian officials about the possible immediate resignation of President Hosni Mubarak and the formation of an interim government that could prepare the country for free and fair elections later this year.

By Friday the EU leaders also upped their message for an orderly transition of power in Egypt and emphasised that it should “start now”, implying that President Mubarak departure in September is not enough and that the transfer of power to a broad-based government must begin immediately.

“We have been clear that Egypt should be taking steps to show there is a clear, credible transparent path towards transition. So far the steps taken have not met the hopes of the people,” David Cameron told reporters when he arrived in Brussels on Friday.

Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi’s message is still ambiguous “We are hoping for a transition in Egypt that brings more democracy without breaking with a president like Mubarak that the West, and first and foremost the United States, consider as wise, a reference for the entire Middle East... Mubarak said he would not run for election again,” Berlusconi added, while his entourage said the statement did not imply that Mubarak should remain in office.

While here in Malta our politicians are not mincing their words. Speaking during a political debate, organised by AZAD, Foreign Minister Tonio Borg and senior Labour MP George Vella said that the immediate removal of President Mubarak could create a power vacuum, which would leave the door open to extremists. The transition, they said, should be gradual.

Unfortunately, it is too late for that. Transition to democracy could have happened gradually if we had not all ignored the plight of the oppressed in Egypt, but as things stand the Egyptians are just not prepared to wait any longer.

“This is a leaderless revolution, so the usual government tactics don’t work. There is nobody to buy off, lock up, or scare away. So no-one, not the people in the square, not the generals, not the White House, not even the last pharaoh himself, Hosni Mubarak, knows how this will end,” said BBC’s Middle East bureau chief Paul Danahar, yesterday.

Mubarak is hoping that the demonstrators will finally tire and exhaustion will drive them back home and submission. However, it seems the demonstrators have only one goal − to see Mubarak out − and are prepared to sit it out until it happens

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