Mubarak Must Go

Social scientists may succeed at explaining events retrospectively, but when they venture into the realm of forecasting, they are on shaky ground. It is very hard to get into the minds of individual actors and predict what they will do. Last Friday (January 28) I predicted that Hosni Mubarak would be gone from power within a week to ten days. By late last week it was obvious that the peaceful mobilization of the Egyptian people for democratic change had crossed a point of no return; it would not cease until Mubarak was gone and a credible path of transition was laid out. As corrupt and repressive as his thirty years of rule have been, I did not expect that Mubarak would choose to abandon every last shred of patriotism and simply brutalize his own people to hang on to power -- as nastily as he needs to.

Continue reading Larry Diamond at The Huffington Post…