THE NEW YORK TIMES: Hosni Mubarak’s legacy was supposed to be stability. During almost three decades in power, he rejected bold action in favor of caution. He took half-steps at economic liberalization, preserved the peace with Israel, gave his police force the power to arrest without charge and allowed only the veneer of democracy to take hold.But history upended Mr. Mubarak, and his fall came as suddenly and surprisingly as his unlikely elevation to the presidency 30 years ago. Mr. Mubarak’s Egypt rose up against him. The streets and squares filled with hundreds of thousands of protesters day and night until he could no longer deny the inescapable conclusion that in order to restore stability, he needed to go.
It was an unexpected epitaph for a military man who until recently was revered — and reviled — as Egypt’s modern-day pharaoh, serving longer than any contemporary Egyptian leader since Muhammad Ali, the founder of the modern state. “He’s the accident of history who brilliantly survived as the longest accidental ruler of Egypt,” said Emad Shahin, an Egyptian scholar at the University of Notre Dame who, like many other Egyptians living abroad, rushed to Tahrir Square in recent days to share in the moment.
In his final appearance on state television on Thursday, when he astounded most of his listeners by appearing to say he would remain in office, he was no longer the stocky, confident military man who was the only leader most Egyptians had ever really known. At 82, he was frail and thin, with dyed black hair and a sometimes poignant undercurrent of self-justification.
The Egyptian public, Egyptian political and military leaders, and American officials all expected him to say he was handing over power. But he apparently could not bring himself to say so, clinging to his vision of himself as a reluctant leader tapped by fate to lead a nation that could not survive without his guiding hand. >>> Michael Slackman | Friday, February 11, 2011
