Mubarak is Lying. Mubarak is Telling the Truth

The latest from the beleaguered President of Egypt:

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has said he would like to resign immediately but fears the country would descend into chaos if he did so.

In his first interview since anti-government protests began, he told ABC News he was “fed up” with power.

It came as Cairo saw another day of violence with clashes between the president’s opponents and supporters.

Mr Mubarak warned that the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood party would fill any power vacuum if he stepped down.

Mubarak is lying. Dictators almost never want to give up power, except to pass it on to their heirs. (There are exceptions, such as Turkey or Chile, where a military dictator stepped in to prevent a radical regime from inflicting further damage, only to step back and restore control once the danger (and the lives of some political opponents) had passed, but these are the exception rather than the rule.) If Mubarak was really tired of power, he could have stepped down any time in the last 30 years.

However, his statement that that the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood party would fill the power vacuum are, sadly, probably true.

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