Steve Clemons will be on the PBS NewsHour tonight at 6 pm, discussing the ongoing protests and increasingly violent repression in Egypt, as well as discussing the policy implications for the United States of the deteriorating situation.

-- Andrew Lebovich

In the Washington Post this morning, George Soros describes very well America's equities in Egypt's current political struggle. America is not all powerful and does not have a magic wand to turn totalitarian regimes into well-functioning democracies, but there are times when the balance in America's strategic relationships must shift toward the vital importance of popular self-determination and will.

Soros opens:

Revolutions usually start with enthusiasm and end in tears. In the case of the Middle East, the tears could be avoided if President Obama stands firmly by the values that got him elected. Although American power and influence in the world have declined, our allies and their armies look to us for direction. These armies are strong enough to maintain law and order as long as they stay out of politics; thus the revolutions can remain peaceful. That is what the United States should insist on while encouraging corrupt and repressive rulers who are no longer tolerated by their people to step aside and allow new leaders to be elected in free and fair elections.

Soros also gets into the issue of Israel in his piece -- calling it a "stumbling block" to getting things right. One of the dirty truths of America's strategic relationship is that despite oil and energy interests, and of course the Suez Canal, the aid that the US has given Egypt and the large many decades of support to Mubarak are part of the package of what the US has carved off for Israel. America helped keep Mubarak stable because he was a vital anchor and partner with Israel in the Arab world. The problem is that ultimately peace deals must be done with people, not autocrats.

The one thing George Soros does not mention in his article is that lurking in Egypt's police and intelligence files are mountains of materials on significant human rights abuses -- disappearances, political detentions, torture, and summary executions. In some of these cases, the United States government knew what was going on or had agents in the room. This will come out, and America's historical complicity in Egypt's nightmares will become clear.

What the US government does at this historic inflection point in Egypt's evolution may be the only thing that helps in part redeem for some of the atrocities Washington participated in years ago.

-- Steve Clemons

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Tonight, I discussed the ongoing drama in Egypt with Rachel Maddow in the clip above.

One of the issues I raised was my sense that many American analysts and the media have too easily discounted the corrosive role that Gamal Mubarak, seen by many as heir to the Hosni Mubarak franchise, is playing in the current political standoff and growing street clashes.

I mentioned Gamal's key role as Deputy Secretary General and Chief of Policy in the National Democratic Party (NDP), from which he refuses to step down, in a piece earlier today posted at The Palestine Note.

I also believe that the NDP-commissioned thugs fighting the anti-Mubarak protesters are a clear violation of the "understanding" that Obama and Hosni Mubarak had.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Steve Clemons will be on Rachel Maddow's show tonight, talking about the wave of protests and current situation in Egypt and the Middle East.

-- Andrew Lebovich

This is a quite dramatic shot via Wired of North America being painted white that a TWN reader forwarded my way. Behind the beauty is a lot of freezing, hardship, and drama.

-- Steve Clemons

Ed. Note: hat tip to Tahoe Editor

More here.

Things are getting tense. There is a world of difference between how things tilted when Marcos when departed the Philippines and other models as in Tiananmen, China or Iran when the government crushed the people's call for justice and a new order.

I am in touch with well-connected Arab-Americans who have been in Egypt, close to power, but who know that Mubarak can't be part of Egypt's next steps.

Am trying to report and share my views as I can. More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

(photo credit: Muhammad Ghafari, Flickr)

This piece was just published at The Palestine Note:

Steve Clemons calls on Gamal to make his intentions clear

Political power works like the stock market; influence is a function of future expectations. Hosni Mubarak's days and tenure are numbered. There is no formula for an orderly transition to a new political regime in Egypt that can include him.

However, his son Gamal Mubarak -- Deputy Secretary General of the National Democratic Party and head of the NDP Policy Committee as well as heir apparent until ten days ago to Hosni Mubarak -- is out of the news, but still a vital figure in Egypt's current drama.

Gamal Mubarak has not spoken, has refused to resign his position in the NDP -- and is someone that many fear continues to wait in the wings until the current storm of protests subside. The younger Mubarak is viewed by most observers to be the mastermind who succeeded too well in a highly fraudulent December 2010 parliamentary election securing for the NDP 209 out of 221 seats in the country.

Much of the protests in Tahrir Square and throughout Egypt are about putting the Mubarak franchise out of business -- and unless Gamal Mubarak removes himself from succession then the political marketplace of emotion, fear, and hope in Egypt will continue towards anarchy.

Gamal Mubarak needs to make clear his intentions -- and the media and political class should call on him to do so.

-- Steve Clemons

Above is a fascinating and important interview conducted by New America Foundation President Steve Coll and the co-director of New America's Middle East Task Force Amjad Atallah with Mustafa El-Gindy, a member of the Egypt's opposition Wafd Party.

-- Andrew Lebovich

Jonathan Guyer is a program associate at the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force and the official cartoonist of The Washington Note. He blogs at Mideast by Midwest.

-- Jonathan Guyer

Al Jazeera's video of Egypt President Hosni Mubarak swearing in intelligence chief Omar Suleiman as the first vice president of Egypt in nearly three decades has many clamoring to learn whatever they can about this person who may actually succeed Mubarak.

Suleiman, one of the long-serving national security technocrats in Egypt, has been a key manager of Egypt's lucrative, military-aid lubed relationship with the United States and has been one of the key interlocutors with Israel.

One of the most disappointing encounters I had with Suleiman was during the time he led efforts to patch together a revived "unity government" in Palestine, tying back together Fatah and Hamas that had split in a bloody and violent civil war which resulted in each party governing different parts of Palestine.

Egypt was selected by the Arab League to lead these talks -- and Suleiman became the Egyptian "George Mitchell" for these unity efforts. Fatah and Hamas came close several times to a deal -- but ultimately, the United States privately conveyed to Mubarak and to Suleiman that it didn't want to see the process succeed.

The Saudis who supported a restored unity government in Palestine were highly irritated when Egypt, supposedly brokering a rapprochement between Hamas and Fatah actually sabotaged the effort.

Suleiman, intel chief and now Egypt's VP, was America's proxy.

-- Steve Clemons

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Brian Katulis and I had a good discussion with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow last night.

Katulis made the interesting point that America's affinity for Mubarak may be just a hangover from the Cold War, at least in part. He also said that we need to move characterizing our options in the region between simplistic notions of stability vs. freedom. I agree with him.

I put on the table that the Israel-Palestine standoff is one of the drivers of America's strong support for Egypt's government under Mubarak. Representative Nita Lowey concurs with this as reported by Capital J's Ron Kampeas.

-- Steve Clemons

There is a clear broad tilt in the American and global media against President Mubarak's regime. I have seen statements of support for Mubarak and dismissal of the protests from some Israeli leaders and oddly from John Bolton.

But on another front, former Newsweek chief foreign correspondent Arnaud de Borchgrave sent me this interesting reminder about the fall of the Shah in Iran. Just something to remember and consider.

Our institutional memories are apparently non-existent. I did the last interview with the Shah on Nov. 8, 1978.

I told him his friends Henry Kissinger and Al Haig and others had asked me to ask him why he did not suppress the revolution and then drastically reform the regime. He answered he had been betrayed by the US and did not wish to see any more blood.

I did not know how ill he already was but I realized then he was finished. The world liberal media was already fawning over Ayatollah Khomeini giving his daily press conferences in a Paris suburb. A number of them flew back with him to Tehran, hailing him as the great liberator from the Shah's tyranny.

The Shah was an enlightened liberal next to the medieval theocrat the world media was hailing as the liberator of the Shah's brutal dictatorship. And the rest is history. The Ayatollahs executed more people in the first six months than the Shah's regime had done in a whole generation.

Arnaud de Borchgrave

Former US Senator Paul Laxalt (R-NV), a good friend of Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos, was the person Ronald Reagan used to communicate to Marcos that he had to go and that US support was over.

Who will Obama use with Mubarak?

-- Steve Clemons

@PJCrowley

The #Egyptian government can't reshuffle the deck and then stand pat. President #Mubarak's words pledging reform must be followed by action.

This is important because essentially it's a critique that the US-liked Omar Suleiman, just sworn in as Egypt's first vice president in three decades and the kind of character who would feature well as a star in a John LeCarre Middle East spooks novel, does not constitute "reform."

To follow my tweets, go to @SCClemons.

-- Steve Clemons

The Century Foundation's Michael Wahid Hanna notes that Egypt President Hosni Mubarak's call for the Egyptian military to deploy in and around the robust protesting crowds in Cairo could cut either way.

The military could stand by the President and brutally repress the population or just simply stand and hold hoping the crowds lose momentum with only limited application of force. Alternatively, they could decide that the military's own interests and lifeline to U.S. military aid is better preserved if they escort Mubarak out of the country and play a key role in securing the next political order.

This could be risky though as it opens the question of who will lead next and how "democratic" will the process of selection and affirmation by the people be. This opens the door to Islamic parties and organizations that have the best networks and organization in the country and which have substantial durability given the fact that they have survived in toxic political conditions inside Egypt. According to one source, the Egyptian military has largely purged its ranks of Islamists -- so this may lead to further clashes in Egypt as a rising political Islam movement, which has kept mostly quiet through this turmoil, may appear and could be perceived as a rival rather than a potential partner by the Egyptian military's command staff.

Michael Hanna writes:

The military -- Despite the scenes that played out in Egypt after the military's deployment yesterday, with the military exercising restraint from violence and engaging in occasional fraternization with protesters, the military's ultimate intentions remain a mystery.This is all the more so following the Egyptian president's truculent response to his people. Was their deployment the first step toward a military-initiated ouster of Mubarak or an effort to crush dissent?

The military played a central role in Friday's events and could be even more important in the coming days, surpassing the more circumscribed role that it has come to occupy within the Egyptian state. The military's day-to-day involvement in political affairs has decreased steadily since the days of Gamal 'Abd al-Nasser, from 1956 to 1970, when Nasser's government was dominated by military figures. Under Mubarak, who took office following the assassination of President Anwar al-Sadat in 1981, this influence has decreased, aided by the regimes efforts to limit the public profiles of military leaders. Nonetheless, the military remained the silent guarantor of regime stability and has twice been deployed to repress significant political turmoil: in 1977, following the outbreak of "bread riots" over Sadat's decision to cut food subsidies; and in 1986, when a group of central security forces rioted and looted throughout Cairo, demanding increased pay. As memories of these events have receded, many Egyptians and outside analysts have wondered about the military's actual influence and what role it might play if again faced with a challenge to the regime.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

What is going on in Egypt now reminds me of the fall of Suharto in Indonesia, the expulsion of and collapse of Marco in the Philippines, the overthrow of Romania's Ceausescu, and of course the Green Movement in Iran.

The first three dictators fell; the last regime remains in place, and it's not certain yet what will happen in Egypt.

America is finally tuning in -- where most of the Middle East has been tied to Al Jazeera on TV sets and internet portals since the dramatic collapse of Tunisia's totalitarian regime.

The choice slice of Egypt President Hosni Mubarak's address tonight was that the protests we are seeing not only in Cairo, but Alexandria and all over the country were a product of the freedoms that Mubarak had given people.

I'll be chatting about the protests in Egypt and the tough choices for US policymakers with Rachel Maddow tonight -- about 9:30 pm EST.

And then following, I will be the "anchor buddy" for the whole show (if things stay on track) with Ed Schulz of The Ed Show.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

This is very big. The regime may not fall -- but the game is changed in Egypt and best I can tell the US does not have a set of contingency scenarios for political change there.

-- Steve Clemons

Word is breaking that John McCain's long time aide and many decades long alter ego, Mark Salter, is the author behind O: A Presidential Novel.

Truth in advertising first. I haven't read the novel, though I really like the graphics of the "O" and the "ears" as well as the brilliant blue of the cover.

Recently, I ventured into a cluster of leading conservatives with whom I had a great social encounter and saw the book in my friend's living room.

Not having read it, I asked the host and others if they enjoyed it -- and the response was "I just couldn't get past the first few dozen pages. I tried twice."

This person also said that Joe Klein's brilliance in Primary Colors is that Klein really had an sympathy and understanding for the tough and miserable life politicians had to lead, an empathy for them. My friend said that he didn't feel that O's author had that same respect for the profession.

I then mentioned that I had been hearing rumors that former McCain chief of staff and co-author of nearly all of McCain's books, Mark Salter, might be the author.

My friend said, "But Mark Salter can write!!"

Just shows that you never know -- until you know.

-- Steve Clemons

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I suggest in this clip with Savannah Guthrie and Chuck Todd on MSNBC's The Daily Rundown that the US government is more in reactive mode on what is happening in the growing zone of instability in the Middle East than in front of things.

We don't have much of a strategy for dealing with political change in some of the teetering, long in the tooth semi-totalitarian states in the region, and we certainly have virtually no strategy to deal with the clearly emerging trend of a rising, democracy-hugging (at least rhetorically) network of political Islam.

-- Steve Clemons

Please join the New America Foundation's American Strategy Program/Middle East Task Force TODAY from 12:15 - 1:45 for a discussion with Ambassador Chas. W. Freeman, touching on themes from his new book "America's Misadventures in the Middle East."

A provocative and often controversial voice, Freeman will describe his unique foreign policy realist orientation, and how he thinks American policy has been ill-suited to the demands of a productive regional equilibrium in the Middle East. Ambassador Freeman will discuss what he sees as America's misguided approach on a number of policy issues, including the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Iran and its disputed nuclear program, the future of Iraq, and the general impact of the global "war on terror" on U.S. relations in the world.

This event will be hosted by TWN Publisher Steve Clemons, and will livestream here.

-- Tom Kutsch

At the 3rd Talking Points Memo Policy Roundtable hosted at the New America Foundation, State Department Policy Planning Director Anne-Marie Slaughter will share her views on America's international engagement -- particularly regarding the world's crisis and not yet crisis (but almost) regions.

Slaughter holds what I consider to be one of the best jobs in government as head of policy planning, the role that "Mr. X", George Kennan, author of the "long telegram", once held. Slaughter, who will be returning at the end of this week to a faculty position at Princeton University, drove the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) process which recently issued its first report.

Join us for live streaming here at 8 am EST.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a very useful look back at what President Obama stated he wanted to accomplish one year ago. Kudos to the HuffPost's Shahien Nasiripour and Sam Stein for writing it.

On the plus side, President Obama delivered on overhauling financial regulation, reforming federal aid for college students, bringing combat troops home from Iraq, cracking down on Iran and North Korea, repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and increasing enforcement of equal-pay laws.

He failed on taxing financial institutions to pay the costs of TARP, failed to add 1.5 million jobs over the last year, failed to pass a comprehensive energy and climate bill, failed to improve home values and increase mortgage refinancings, and failed to hold regular meetings with Republican Congressional members. Oh yes, and he failed to reform immigration laws.

He is on the edge of pass/fail, according to the writers, on increased transparency on lobbying and campaign finance, extending Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class but not for the wealthy (isn't this a fail?), and stimulating lending to and tax cuts for small businesses.

There are some incompletes as well -- but best to read the whole thing below. From a release on their piece:

As President Barack Obama prepares to deliver his second formal State of the Union address Tuesday night, it is worth looking back at the ambitious policy promises he made a year ago. According to a Huffington Post analysis of last year's speech, Obama made 18 broad pledges to the country, ranging from economic growth and financial reform to troop withdrawals in Afghanistan. On many of those pledges, analysts say, he delivered. But the main thrust of Obama's speech turned on his vow to generate jobs and jolt the moribund economy back to life -- and there, he came up short.

Obama is not the first president to fall short of his State of the Union promises, which are generally broad blueprints for the chief executive's vision of governance. But the Obama administration's accomplishments and failures of the past year illustrate the daunting challenges facing the country and, to some extent, the overwhelming expectations this White House set for itself.

In 2010, after the end of a bruising yearlong health care fight, Obama followed through on promises to pass a sweeping law overhauling financial regulations and repeal "don't ask, don't tell," the military's ban on openly gay service members. In addition, he largely stuck to the script he set with respect to his foreign-policy agenda.

He will likely be defined, however, by his failure to deliver on the public's top concern -- jobs. Despite promises of bold action, 2010 saw the U.S. economy regain just a small fraction of the jobs lost to the Great Recession, and recovery continues to sputter.

Below is a virtual report card from last year's State of the Union address, which The Huffington Post pulled together from interviews with experts and reviews of government and independently-sourced data. Obama tallied 7.5 promises broadly kept, 7.5 failures and 3 "incompletes." The individual results, in order of when the promises made during the speech, are as follows:

PROMISE: Tax on the biggest financial institutions to recoup the cost of the Troubled Asset Relief Program and incentivize them to shrink
GRADE: Fail

Obama proposed a levy on the nation's biggest banks to repay taxpayers for the cost of TARP and to induce the firms to shrink so that their potential failure would pose less risk to the entire financial system. After the industry objected, the White House dropped the issue.

PROMISE: Add 1.5 million jobs in 2010
GRADE: Fail

In discussing how many jobs his economic stimulus plan created, Obama said "we're on track to add another one-and-a-half million jobs to this total by the end of the year." Instead, the economy added 1.1 million jobs. Nearly one in ten American workers is jobless. At 9.4 percent, the unemployment rate has been stuck above 9 percent for 20 consecutive months, the longest such streak since records began in 1948, according to the Labor Department. When Obama took office, the nation's unemployment rate stood at 7.8 percent.

PROMISE: Stimulate lending to and cut taxes for small businesses
GRADE: Pass/Fail

Obama told Congress he would call for "a new jobs bill tonight." What he delivered was a bill that took $30 billion in TARP funds and redirected it to community banks -- in hopes that they'd lend to small business -- and an abundance of tax breaks. He added that "it is time to finally slash the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas, and give those tax breaks to companies that create jobs right here in the United States of America." The small-business bill was enacted in September, but credit remains tight and hiring is tepid. The tax overhaul for corporations never happened.

Much more. . .

-- Steve Clemons