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Analyst: Military Action against Egyptâs President 'Last Option'

   Peter Clottey  February 09, 2011

Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS

   Suez  Canal Company workers protest as they began an open-ended strike
   in   front   of   the   company's   headquarters   in  Ismailia  City,
   Egypt,Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011. The canal stayed open as everal hundred
   workers  demonstrated,  demanding  the  resignation of their immediate
   boss  Admiral  Ahmed  Fadel, the chairman of the Suez Canal Authority.
   Workers also wanted a pay rise and social equality.(AP Photo)

   A scholar said there is growing support among Egyptian protesters that
   President  Hosni  Mubarak  should  be  âmilitarily  forced out,â if he
   continues to defy protestersâ demand to immediately step down and cede
   power.

   Howayda Mostafa, professor of mass communications at the University of
   Cairo,  told  VOA the protesters do not have confidence in the present
   administrationâs promise of âtotalâ reforms they are demanding.

   âReforms  or  not, the protesters do not trust the regime anymore. So,
   they  donât  even  want to make negotiations with them until President
   Mubarak is out. Even the reforms that President Mubarak has instructed
   do  not  seem enough for the protesters because they are thinking that
   it  is  not  real  reform.  They  donât  trust these procedures,â said
   Mostafa.

   âThey  think  that  the  government  is  biding their time to calm the
   protesters.  They  are  looking for a new regime. They donât want, for
   example,  the vice president; before, he was a good figure and popular
   figure,  but now they consider that Omar Suleiman is one of the regime
   (members).  So, they refuse the idea of a transfer of power (from Mr.)
   Mubarak to Omar Suleiman.â

   At a news briefing Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs
   said  the Egyptian government has yet to meet the minimum threshold of
   reforms demanded by protesters.

   Mostafa  said  the  protesters  do  not  believe  that  Vice President
   Suleiman  can  lead, in her words, any serious transformation they are
   demanding.

   âMany  of  the  Egyptian  protesters  are  now talking about, if (Mr.)
   Mubarak  doesnât go, or if there is no solution, the military (action)
   solution  would  be  the  last  option,  or  the  last solution,â said
   Mostafa.

   Egypt's Vice President said the government will not tolerate prolonged
   anti-government  protests  in  Cairo's  main  square,  where protester
   numbers swelled to the hundreds of thousands Tuesday.
   Egypt's  state-run  news  agency, MENA, quoted Suleiman as saying that
   the  crisis  triggered  by  16 days of anti-Mubarak protests in Tahrir
   Square must end âas soon as possible.â
   MENA says Suleiman told a group of newspaper editors that the presence
   of  anti-Mubarak  activists  and  satellite television stations in the
   square  was  making  Egyptian  citizens  "hesitant  to go to work" and
   disrupting  daily life.  He accused the satellite television stations
   of "insulting" Egypt, without naming them.
   Suleiman also is quoted as saying the government does not want to deal
   with Egyptian society using "police tools" and prefers to use dialogue
   to try to address the protesters' demands.

   Meanwhile,  Egyptian  workers  are  also reportedly beginning to press
   home their demands for democratic reforms.

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