Follow NRO’s udpates on the situation in Egypt on our breaking-news blog, Developing. Mubarak just surprised everybody by giving a speech on television. He has fired the rest of his government, but will not step down himself. He said he needs to maintain law and order against “looters,” and will continue to expand freedoms in Egypt. A rough transcription of a rough translation of his remarks is here.

Meanwhile, Elliott Abrams of the Council on Foreign Relations shared his reaction with NRO:

I find it hard to believe that it will work. Mubarak fires the government, but none of the protesters have been saying ‘we want the prime minister out.’ They’ve been saying ‘Mubarak out’. He’s basically toughening it out. He says, ‘I stand for order and the army will now have to enforce that.’ I can’t see any demonstrator in the streets today saying, ‘Well, now that’s fixed, let’s go home.’ I assume the only way this ends is either with the army crushing it, or Mubarak making further concessions. It will involve him ruling by sheer brute force. And most Arab dictatorships rule with some element of legitimacy. He’s losing that legitimacy. So he’s moving along that spectrum toward sheer military dictatorship.
The speech seems to me basically this 82-year old guy saying ‘I stand for order and I’m going to enforce it.’
I’m not sure why he delayed [until past midnight to speak]. He may have been waiting to see what actually happened in the streets.
I understand how an 82-year-old guy who has ruled through the military for 30 years would come to that. I don’t see what’s around the corner other than him crushing the demonstrations or failing. What’s the good outcome from Mubarak? That the army succeeds with a certain low number of casualties?
We [the U.S.] should say that if he crushes the protests, he is an illegitimate military dictatorship. This is the 3am phone call situation. How long ago did Hillary say that Egypt was stable? They seem to be behind the news cycle.

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