File photo of Egypt's Hosni MubarakATTILA KISBENEDEK/AFP / Getty Images
Hosni Mubarak, the President of Egypt, has shrewdly faced down the protesters and, apparently, the Armed Forces, too, but he is not likely to be able to deliver civil peace to his country during the seven months of his remaining term.
His continuation in office has indeed become an obstacle to fruitful and constructive negotiations between the government and the opposition toward the introduction of liberal democracy. Media reports through much of Thursday, sourced to "senior officials," are evidence that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces tried to induce Mr. Mubarak to resign. But the military found itself looking into a void. The forces' commanders and others in the government seem to have contemplated a departure from the constitutional framework.
The constitutional successor to the President, if he had resigned, is the not belatedly appointed Vice-President, Omar Suleiman, the former head of Egypt's foreign intelligence agency - to whom Mr. Mubarak has now delegated some powers, which remain unspecified at the time of writing. Rather, the President's lawful successor would be a little-known, long-standing functionary of the regime, Ahmad Fathi Sorour, the Speaker of the People's Assembly - hardly a strong figure.
The military has on the whole behaved patriotically and prudently in the past few weeks. The democratic protesters would evidently have preferred a de facto junta to Mr. Sorour or Mr. Mubarak, paradoxical as that is. If so, they were mistaken. To have taken an extraconstitutional path would have led into a legal vacuum, not to liberal democracy and the rule of law. It would have invited anarchy - or the prolonged reign of a military caste, such as Egypt experienced under the non-hereditary Mameluke dynasty from 1253 to 1517.
Mr. Mubarak spoke twice of a "fair and square" presidential election to replace him in September. Among the sections of the Egyptian Constitution to which he proposed amendments on Thursday is the highly skewed provision for electing a president. Indeed, the constitutional-amendment procedure is skewed in almost the very same way. It will take an uncharacteristically sincere resolve on the part of the stacked People's Assembly, and of Mr. Mubarak, to remove from the Constitution the constraints that make nonsense of its many democratic elements.
But that is the only way forward. The protesters, the opposition and, not least, the Armed Forces must do their best to keep up the pressure and hold Mr. Mubarak and Mr. Suleiman to their words of Thursday. That will make for a long, challenging seven months.