Re: Major power shift about to happen due unrest in egypt
Well persia was a major US ally and almost all their hardware were from the west. Didn't made any difference when the revolution came, especially after ayatollahs got hold on power. Egypt has some serious infrastructure to keep it's goodies in shape, with the exception of air force.
About the nukes, those are definately a last resort and deterrence weapons. But if egypt rolls into sinai and stops before israeli homeland using nukes could be out of the question and in that situation israeli position would be very vulnerable as it was before six day war.
Ifs and ifs. Let's hope egyptians just focus on their own problems.
Well, Iran have oil and that gives them some sway at things or sort, but the lesson with Iran is that a theoretic regime doesn't suit for a modern nation - unless you want to regress things to the dark ages like the Taliban. Egypt on the other hand have no such card to play, weak in industrial base and quite reliant on US financial aid.
The background and under current that drive the popular revolt is still secular in color, even the Muslim Brotherhood - many of the terrorist organizations in the region spawn from it - calls for a peaceful transition - for now, at least. Yet, up till now the revolt has no clear leader or "flag bearer" of sort...bring down Mubarak is one thing, but "to replace him with who" is another thing entirely, and to this day there's no coalition formed amongst the opposition. In such case, even an early general election is called for right now, Mubarak's party can still be a force to reckon with - to put it short, even after stepping down he'll still in play, not on the front stage that is.
But the harder impact to the global stage would be the safety of the Suez Canal. Whoever comes into power needs to assure the continual operation of the Suez Canal and its access by US Navy to get the necessary foreign support.
