Egypt. Part 2

Some TV newsies have been calling for the US to support the Egyptian rebels. Others have been calling for support of Mubarak, likening Mubarak to the Shah of Iran. The shah was overthrown after Carter withdrew American support, and Iran was taken over by Islamic fundamentalists led by the Ayatollah Khomeni. Iran was converted from a US ally to a relentless adversary in a matter of days. They are still an adversary.
In actual fact, we cannot support the Egyptian rebels, yet. The world is full of shaky regimes, all of which fear an American attempt at regime change will be effective. The US cannot be perceived as a superpower willing to foment revolution in countries that displease it, not if we want to do any sort of business, diplomatic, commercial, cultural, or whatever. Which means we cannot jettison the Mubarak regime just yet.
Plus, we aren't sure we like the Egyptian opposition all that much. CIA has done its usual sloppy job, and we have no idea who, if anyone, is behind today's Egyptian uprising. We ought to fear that the real leaders might be the Muslim Brotherhood. They are an old and powerful Islamic movement that goes back to the 1920's. They got started as anti colonialists. Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak considered them dangerous radicals, outlawed the party, and slung every party member they could catch into jail. Despite this pressure, the Brotherhood was able to assassinate Anwar Sadat and give birth to Al Quada.
At this moment it looks like Mubarak might be able to survive, but he is in his eighties, in poor health, and he isn't going to last much longer. If a halfway decent Egyptian leader were to surface in today's confusion, we could do worse. Unfortunately, we have no good intelligence from Egypt and we cannot tell real leaders from useless windbags. So we have to wait upon events.