Egypt

I've been focused mainly on the events in Syria lately, but I have been watching things unfold in Egypt and I think there is a simmering pressure that was only slightly eased. The arrest and show trial of Mubarak might have distracted people for some time and made them think that Egypt had changed, but it seems that the control of the SCAF (basically the army generals) remains as tight as ever. Egypt needs to wrap up its revolution and get rid of the last traces of the Sadat-Mubarak military-industrial complex, and it needs to do that as quickly as possible. The state of the country's economy can't be that good, and the longer the country stays in its lawless state, the more difficult it will be to heal the damage that has been done.

Egypt is like the Arab world's elder brother. In the old days, everybody used to look up to her with hope and expectation. Today that's still the case. It's the Arab country which has the most developed and organised civil society, and yet it still hasn't been able to seize power yet.