Fall of Mubarak Shakes Middle East

By CHARLES LEVINSON, MARGARET COKER and MATT BRADLEY in Cairo and ADAM ENTOUS and JONATHAN WEISMAN in Washington

President Mubarak today finally resigned from office, bringing to an end three decades of autocratic rule. Margaret Coker has reaction from Cairo plus analysis from Jerry Seib and Neil Lipschutz.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down after 18 days of unrelenting protests, handing power to the military and opening the door to an uncertain new course for the Arab world's most populous country, and for the entire Middle East.

The announcement Friday afternoon sparked celebrations by protesters across the country that were echoed elsewhere in the region. Egyptians of all ages jammed the banks of the Nile and the squares of Cairo waving flags, lighting off fireworks and shouting "freedom."

Now that Hosni Mubarak has stepped down as Egypt's President after three decades in that role, Jerry Seib, John Bussey and Brooking's Shadi Hamid look at what's next for Egypt? Plus, Charles Levinson has reaction from Cairo.

In Amman, Jordan, the central downtown circle became clogged with honking cars within minutes, while cheering celebrants marched to the Egyptian Embassy. In Beirut, festive gunfire broke out.

Mr. Mubarak's resignation opens a period of uncertainty not only for Egypt, which will have to manage a period of military rule, but for countries such as Saudi Arabia, Israel and the U.S., for whom Mr. Mubarak has been a key anchor of their policies in the Middle East.

Mr. Mubarak becomes the second long-standing Middle Eastern ruler to be pushed from office in as many months by determined popular protest, following Tunisia's President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Such a political earthquake hasn't hit the region since the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Associated Press

In this photo taken from Egyptian television, Egypt's vice president Omar Suleiman announced that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down.

The power shift in Cairo puts new pressure on the Obama administration, which was often left in the dark as the revolution played out and stumbled in its efforts to stage-manage Mr. Mubarak's exit. Now the challenge is to try to steer Egypt toward a secular democracy that best serves U.S. interests.

Speaking at the White House Friday afternoon, Mr. Obama hailed the protest movement and offered whatever assistance would be needed to ensure that "nothing less than genuine democracy can carry the day."

He was careful not to claim any credit for Mr. Mubarak's downfall. "Today belongs to the people of Egypt," he said.

Through Journal Photographers' Lenses

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David Degner for The Wall Street Journal

A woman standing through the moonroof of a car in Alexandria held up a flag.

Revolution in 18 Days

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Associated Press

Demonstrators deface a poster of President Hosni Mubarak in Alexandria Egypt, Jan. 25.

Protests' Payoff

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Reuters

Protesters celebrated in Tahrir Square after the announcement of Mr. Mubarak's resignation.

Egypt's Strongman

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Take a look back at Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's career.

Regional Upheaval

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A succession of rallies and demonstrations, in Egypt, Jordan, Yemen and Algeria have been inspired directly by the popular outpouring of anger that toppled Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. See how these uprisings have progressed.

Clashes in Cairo

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• Video: The Latest From Egypt

Indeed, the effort to unravel Mr. Mubarak's 29-year rule began with a dozen activists who used Internet tools, including Facebook, to stir discontent with Egypt's police forces. They mobilized support in Egypt's slums and working-class neighborhoods and plotted a mass demonstration for Jan. 25, a holiday honoring the police.

By then, the Obama administration was being pushed by some allies to toughen its stand against Mr. Mubarak, while others argued that the long-time ruler was the only force able to stave off a threat from an Islamist political movement, the Muslim Brotherhood.

White House advisers wanted the administration to send an emissary to Cairo with the message that Mr. Mubarak should step aside. The administration chose Frank Wisner, a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt with close ties to Mr. Mubarak and Arab leaders. The thinking was the message should be delivered by a friend. That proved wrong.

Mr. Wisner delivered a tepid message to Mr. Mubarak about his future on Feb. 1, people familiar with the matter said. He further diluted the message a few days later when he publicly stated that Mr. Mubarak staying in office was critical to any transition.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made clear those were Mr. Wisner's personal views, but they may have encouraged Mr. Mubarak to dig in. Mr. Wisner didn't respond to requests for comment.

In Cairo, a tipping point came Sunday, Feb. 6, when the newly appointed vice president, Omar Suleiman, failed to bring opposition groups into a credible dialog to resolve the crisis. Most opposition groups, including protest leaders, refused even to meet with Mr. Suleiman. Those that did denounced the effort afterwards.

Then, on Monday, when the protests appeared to be losing steam, Mr. Suleiman said in a televised interview that Egyptians weren't ready for democracy. The comments, with the regime's decision to release a detainee who had become a key figure in the protests, Google Inc. executive Wael Ghonim, re-energized protests and brought new groups into the streets.

On Tuesday night, Vice President Joe Biden, in a telephone call to Mr. Suleiman, laid out precisely what the White House meant by an "orderly transition to democracy," including the immediate lifting of the emergency law. It was the strongest set of demands the U.S. had made.

The call all but shut down high-level communications between Washington and Cairo, say U.S. officials. Mr. Mubarak and his allies, including Egyptian diplomats in Washington, were upset and angry at Mr. Obama for moving against the president, according to people familiar with the discussions. That meant the White House had limited access to decision-makers at the top of the regime.

"It was very difficult to get the meetings we needed or the calls we needed returned," said one lawmaker familiar with events.

The pace of events quickened. Mr. Ghonim, newly released, showed up in Tahrir Square, helping reinvigorate the protests.

On Wednesday, Mr. Suleiman met with a steady stream of ruling-party and business leaders relaying the message that Egypt's economy was seriously threatened by the crisis.

By Thursday, some of those same leaders were meeting with Mr. Mubarak and urging him to step down. Several say they had the impression he was planning to do that.

They were joined in that impression by officials across the Atlantic. Leon Panetta, the Central Intelligence Agency chief, appeared to confirm the reports, telling the House Intelligence Committee Mr. Mubarak was likely to depart Thursday night. He later cautioned that Mr. Mubarak might instead opt to transfer powers to Mr. Suleiman.

Mr. Obama, in brief remarks, raised expectations, saying, "What is absolutely clear is that we are witnessing history unfold."

Israeli analysts remain concerned about possible new threats to the country's security amid unrest in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East. Special correspondent Martin Himel reports from Tel Aviv.

White House, State Department and Pentagon officials were working their Egyptian contacts Thursday afternoon, though officials acknowledged the difficulty of finding people in the know.

But when Mr. Mubarak spoke to the nation on Thursday evening, he delivered an ambiguous message that left protesters furious. Subsequent explanations by his ambassador to the U.S. that the president was handing power to Mr. Suleiman seemed to add to the confusion. Mr. Mubarak also talked that day with an Israeli politician he had known for years, and excoriated the U.S. for what he saw as naively throwing him overboard and ignoring the possibility of extremism surging if he were to go, according to Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a legislator and former cabinet minister.

Naguib Sawiris, a prominent Egyptian businessman who had sided with protestors but was also in close contact with the regime, was scathing about what he called a "disastrous" speech that muddled a coherent policy decision crafted over numerous hours by the president's advisers and the army.

Mr. Obama watched Mr. Mubarak's speech in the conference room of Air Force One as he flew back from Michigan. Mr. Mubarak's waffling prompted disbelief within the White House. Officials speculated that the Egyptian President made a last-minute personal decision to back away from a clear transfer of power.

Mr. Obama, after an extended meeting with his national security team, released the longest statement of the Egyptian crisis, making clear Messrs. Mubarak and Suleiman had muddied the transition process. "The Egyptian people have been told that there was a transition of authority, but it is not yet clear that this transition is immediate, meaningful or sufficient," Mr. Obama said.

A U.S. official said on Friday that the intelligence reports that were shared with the White House in the 48 hours before the announcement that Mr. Mubarak had resigned made it increasingly clear that the regime "was not properly assessing conditions on the ground and that the military was growing more impatient with Mubarak's inner circle."

After the speech, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates spoke to Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, Egypt's minister of defense. It was their fifth conversation since the protests started. Officials wouldn't say what they discussed.

As the crisis dragged on, relations between Mr. Tantawi and Mr. Suleiman had frayed, according to an Egyptian with close ties to senior military officers. Messrs. Tantawi and Suleiman couldn't be reached for comment.

"It seems the army turned and decided it would have to step in when Suleiman failed to get any kind of consensus from the opposition," a person close to the military said. "Everything Suleiman did only exacerbated the situation and more protesters came out."

When protesters fanned out en masse on Friday and besieged key government institutions, the military leadership decided it had to act, said a person familiar with their thinking.

"The army was cornered," said this person. "They had no choice but to decide to stop this now." That meant pushing Mr. Mubarak to allow Mr. Suleiman to announce he was stepping down.

Mr. Obama was meeting with aides in the Oval Office Friday morning when he was handed a note: It contained a transcript of Mr. Suleiman's statement announcing Mr. Mubarak's decision to step down. Mr. Obama then watched the scenes of jubilation in Cairo on TV.

How the transition will proceed in the coming weeks and months remains unclear. The high military council now overseeing the process insisted its mandate doesn't replace the Egyptian constitution.

But the group offered almost no additional information—such as how it planned to proceed with forming a new government, whether they would scrap or reform the current constitution nor how they plan to handle the affairs of government without a parliament or cabinet ministers.

Mr. Mubarak's last acts as head of state may offer some clues. On Tuesday, the former president established a nominally independent panel of ten high-level justices to study constitutional changes, such as allowing for free and fair elections, lifting the decades-old state of emergency and liberalizing media restrictions.

Early Friday afternoon, two large brown military helicopters flew out of the presidential palace compound. They banked over the crowd, prompting cheers —and speculation that the helicopters carried President Mubarak and his entourage out of the city.

Write to Margaret Coker at margaret.coker@wsj.com, Charles Levinson at charles.levinson@wsj.com and Jonathan Weisman at jonathan.weisman@wsj.com