Mubarak is not well despite statements to the contrary.

 
MWMA sources have revealed the President Mubarek is suffering from extreme exhaustion and is undergoing tests. He is overweight and has been battling diabetes and high blood pressure for quite some time now. He has on a number of occasions been hospitalized in Germany for different ailments that the Egyptian government has kept partially secret. His death or incapacitation would add a new twist to the already complicated situation in the Middle East. Critics have long claimed he is grooming his son Gamal to take his place if and when he can no longer rule. He continues to deny this emphatically.

Egypt is the second biggest receiver of foreign aid from the United States is a country in deep turmoil. Over 80% of Egyptians do not have running water with much drinking water coming directly from the fetid polluted Nile River. Many inhabitants of the desert nation's villages are forced to resort to buying jerry cans of water from occasional tanker trucks or improvising wells to bring up often unclean water. There have been numerous demonstrations as of late as desperate Egyptians clash with police over these water shortages. You have to wonder why the almost 50 billion dollars in aid have not been used to at least assure drinking water for the 76 million inhabitants of the country.   

 The aid coming from the US was made dependent on democratic reform in Egypt that President Mubarek was opposing. That reform is very slow in coming and elections that were held about a year ago still guaranteed a Mubarek victory. There are still roughly about 100,000 political prisoners with an enormous police force of 1.4 million. The standing army is only 350,000 soldiers. This all means that Egypt is a police state that has some vestiges of democracy forced upon it by the west.

Mubarak would claim and has that his tight control of the country is necessary as the extremist Moslem brotherhood would completely throw the country into chaos if it came to power. He might be right seeing what happened in Iraq. Nonetheless there seems to be clear erosion in the ability of Mubarak to continue to rule with an iron fist amidst the abject poverty that the overwhelming majority of Egyptians suffer from. The very popular Moslem brotherhood earned 20% of the representative power in a mostly irrelevant rubber stamp parliament. Other parties who were much more liberal were also hounded by police making the elections clearly biased and unfair.

Whatever Mubarak’s condition the takeover by the Hamas of the Gaza Strip has made the Egyptian government edgy. The violent incident at the border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza strip where one person was killed and scores injured underscores the powder keg Mubarak and his ruling government are sitting on. In this incident thousands of people attempted to cross the border to reunite with relatives or simply to escape the Gaza strip. They were stopped on the Hamas side of the border by Hamas because had they reached the Egyptian side a blood bath would have ensued. That may have sparked massive unrest in Egypt which coupled with Mubarak illness (?) could lead to what many have been predicting for years. Violent regime change aka Iran.   

 
The United States is clearly in a very difficult position as it try’s to push real democracy while being nervous over the rise of a fundamentalist Islam if the people really get their say. The classic example is the Gaza strip where free elections brought the extremist Hamas to power. Mubarak is a tyrant but is friendly to the west and abides mostly to the peace treaty signed with Israel.

 
This contradiction is glaring and may disappear with the passing of Mubarak his son not withstanding. The relative calm on Egypt’s southeastern border is on Mubarak’s last legs.

The worst is yet to come.