Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's fall last week, after weeks of mass protests in Cairo and throughout the region, has electrified the Arab world in a way that even Tunisia did not. In less than a month, protesters ousted one of the Middle East's longest-serving leaders. Now autocratic leaders throughout the region are nervously watching their citizens for signs that they too could be pushed out the door as Egyptians struggle to cobble together a government and figure out their next step.
“What has changed is that Arabs know that they can change their own situation without the help of the US, without the help of the international community, they can just go out on the streets and do it on their own – and no one can take that away from them,” Shadi Hamid, the director of research at the Brookings Doha Center, told the Monitor.
