With the whole world looking at Egypt, so am I. This post brings you links to stuff I've seen that I thought worth sharing, and will be updated from time to time in the next while.
12.35pm: 45 pictures of the events from the Big Picture.
12.40pm: Is the chance for democracy in Egypt already lost? So it is argued here, with Mubarak and the military said to have 'outsmarted the opposition', the military occupying centre stage. A premature judgement, it must be hoped.
12.45pm: Who are the pro-Mubarak demonstrators? 'It looks like much of this violence is being orchestrated by the Egyptian authorities' says a spokesman for Amnesty International.
12.50pm: Battle of the street: '"He won't go," President Hosni Mubarak's supporters chanted on the other side. "He will go," went the reply. "We're not going to go."'
12.55pm: 'Analysts posit three obvious potential outcomes from Egypt's turmoil. These are the institution of liberal democracy; the consolidation of a new, probably military, dictatorship; or the triumph of a radical Islamist regime [led] by the Muslim Brotherhood.' The writer himself points towards the models of Indonesia and Malaysia.
1.46pm: A deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood is reported as saying the peace treaty with Israel would be scrapped once a provisional government was formed by it and other opposition groups.
1.53pm: Richard Bulliet, Professor of History at Columbia University, says the Obama administration 'needs to open its mind to the likelihood that the Muslim Brotherhood will be part of Egypt's post-Mubarak government'.
2.02pm: On the basis of parallels between Iran in 1979 and Egypt now, Abbas Milani stresses 'the perils of [the US] vacillating between defending an old regime and establishing ties with new democrats'. He goes on to say: 'Egyptian democrats must not be fooled by the radical Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood. If and when Mubarak falls, they simply cannot allow the most radical and brutal forces to win in the ensuing chaos. If these forces are allowed to claim power using the rhetoric of democracy, Egyptians will find themselves decades from now needing another uprising, which is precisely the current situation of the Iranian people.' (Via Mick.)
2.19pm: I can't help noting in this little round-up of Egypt links the contrast between Seumas Milne's enthusiasm for the democratic forces on the streets of Cairo and his lack of the same when people in Tehran were protesting against a rigged election. Is it that he's hoping for an outcome that puts an anti-Western government in power in Egypt; whereas the Iranian regime is already all that a man could want in that regard? Just asking.
2.31pm: Egyptian blogger Sandmonkey 'was arrested this morning as he took medical supplies into Tahrir Square for the anti-Mubarak protesters'.
2.48pm: Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post: '[I]f the regime falls, the successor regime will not be a liberal democracy. Mubarak's military authoritarianism will be replaced by Islamic totalitarianism.' She finds US foreign policy clueless in the circumstances, but spells out no alternative unless it is (implicitly) to try to shore up the Mubarak regime.
2.57pm: The Muslim Brotherhood is 'marginal to the spirit of revolt now spreading through the Arab world' and not to be feared. So, at any rate, says Scott Atran.
3.08pm: Journalists under attack.