How Do You Say Alea Iacta Est in Arabic?

Like everyone else of sense, I’m wary of people who are too certain about anything that might happen next in Egypt. That suspicion certainly extends to my own opinions. I’m not sure we even know what the known knowns are, far less anything else.

That said, I think one can reasonably suspect that the appointment of Omar Suleiman as Vice-President is neither a sign of Hosni Mubarak’s strength nor anything like enough to satisfy the protestors. The regime may yet survive but I wouldn’t rush to purchase Hosni Futures. Unlike David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, Barack Obama hasn’t talked about this year’s elections yet but one imagines, reading between the lines of his most recent statement, that will be his next move. Elsewhere, the relationship between the Pentagon and the Egyptian military becomes ever-more important. Here one assumes the Americans must be counselling caution. This would be good for the United States and, much more vitally, good for Egypt.