See who else is in trouble in the Arab region here. The full article takes a good look at the problems and challenges with the possible overthrow of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak for the US. One of the main points is that revolutions aren't often predictable and that sometimes what comes after is worse, no matter how bad the existing regime/dictator was, with the Iranian Revolution in 1979 being a key example.

Sometime soon, Egypt's longtime leader Hosni Mubarak is probably going to step down. Things have escalated after over a week of anti-Mubarak protests in Egypt despite Mubarak trying to appease the protesters, though only in offering small, gradual steps as opposed to just stepping down right away. After revamping his Cabinet last week, Mubarak has offered to leave power in September but this is still too long for many of his citizens. However, Mubarak's supporters have stepped into the fray now, engaging in clashes with anti-Mubarak protesters that have resulted in deaths. This ongoing situation has ramifications extending beyond the country, from the possibility of continuing the recent spread of people revolutions in the Arab world, to how engaged the US should be especially given Mubarak is a staunch ally and even to how much influence people in China could take from it, prompting the authorities there to block coverage on Egypt.

First Tunisia, now Egypt and Jordan. The Arab world seems to be going through a really tumultuous moment as a wave of public protests have broken out in those countries against the respective rulers. Egypt has taken the protests, in which 26 have died so far, so seriously that it actually "shut down" the Internet, something that has never been done before.

Egypt's PM Hosni Mubarak, the very person who the protesters want to see step down, also dismissed his Cabinet and defended his security forces' heavyhanded reaction. Mubarak is an elected ruler but under his 30-year rule, he has clamped down on media and opposition parties, tortured dissidents, and generally engineered Egypt's supposed democratic system to ensure his continual reign. Yet he has also overseen a tenuous kind of peace with Israel and has steered Egypt into the US geopolitical camp, so it's not surprising that the US leadership, specifically Vice-President Joe Biden came out and backed him.