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What is happening in Egypt is of immense importance, not only due to the importance of the country but also due to the radicality of the demand.  The demand is not just that Mubarak should leave -- that is a first step -- but that the system be changed, putting an end to the neoliberal system associated with the military dictatorship.  That is going to be a long series of battles for months -- and perhaps even more -- to come. . . .  The plan of the ruling system, supported by the United States of course, is not to allow that -- it's to make minimal concessions in order to safeguard the essentials of the system: that is, neoliberal capitalist integration into the global system, which is at the root of all these social devastations of course; but simultaneously a system aligned with US policy on the world and the region, which means also tolerating, allowing de facto, Israel to continue the devastation in occupied Palestine.  Now, this is the plan.  This is what Obama means by "smooth transition" -- the transition which would lead to no change in fact, except some minor concessions, such as that Mubarak would personally leave.  That is what is on the agenda now: the movement will continue to develop, radicalize, be more and more demanding in-depth changes in society . . . social and economic policies which are bound to come into conflict with global capitalism. . . .