Egypt - round 2

I mentioned before that I'm a little skeptical about the Egyptian situation - i.e. the current regime might suck, but is change likely to be change for the better? I thought that the recent Iranian revolts seemed to have more of an organization - a plan - behind them and a feasible alternative to the current ruling party whereas Egypt seemed to be more or less a make-it-up-as-you-go-along affair. Now, based on conversations with a few Iranians and Egyptians I'm wondering if I might have failed to recall the Iranian situation correctly.

I was chatting with one of my Egyptian friends about this a few days ago, and asking whether or not it might be OK for Mubarak to stay in power until the elections in the fall or whether this would just be enough time to reconsolidate and rig a new set of elections. His answer - and one that I've more or less come to agree with - is that following the secret police acting undercover as pro-Mubarak protestors to attack the protesters that that isn't a viable course of action.

Now what? In the caption to photo #17 of the Big Picture's Egyptian photo-essay it notes that "The military is generally respected by the protesters; police officers, however, are reviled". Considering that Mubarak's route to power involved him as Chief of Staff of the Egyptian Air Force, I'm wondering how dissimilar the military retaking control would be.

Another thing I've recently come across are some estimates of the Egyptian economy that were published in the Wall Street Journal:

• The underground economy is estimated to be the country's largest employment sector - 9.6 million vs. 5.9 million for the public service and 6.8 million for the official private sector.
• 92% of Egyptians are estimated to lack normal legal title to their homes.
• The estimated value of the underground economy and property is $248 billion, 30x the values of the companies on the Cairo Stock Exchange, and 55x greater than the value of all post-Napoleonic foreign investment.