The opposition continues to press Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to resign

By Tim Whewell BBC Newsnight

Two weeks into the mass protests against President Hosni Mubarak, the fate of Egypt's revolution is still balanced on the tip of a bayonet.

Fears that the uprising might be drowned in blood have receded. But the role of the army remains highly ambiguous.

For nearly 60 years the military has been the heart of the Egyptian regime, and with its allies in the business and political oligarchy, it could find many ways to stifle "people power".

When I arrived in Egypt on 26 January, a day after the first mass demonstration against the government, the youthful protesters I met were calling one another on to the streets through Facebook and Twitter and hoping for what they regarded as a textbook revolution.

"The oppressed Egyptians are filled with anger for the last 30 years," Muhammad Abdel-Fatah, an idealistic English literature student from Alexandria said.

"They were just waiting for the spark."

That spark, he believed, was provided by middle class activists like himself.

But it was the whole 84m-strong nation, much of it weighed down by poverty and unemployment, which would catch light.

LEARN MORE Watch a special edition of Newsnight about Egypt's revolution on Wednesday 9 February 2011 at 10.30pm on BBC Two, and then afterwards on the BBC iPlayer and Newsnight website.

Two days later, as Egyptians of every description, men and women, rich and poor, religious and secular, marched together towards Cairo's central Tahrir Square, Muhammad's prediction seemed to be borne out.

The demonstrators were met with water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets. And yet, with the revolution barely begun, they appeared to prevail.

I watched as an enraged crowd on one broad flyover forced the riot police back and briefly even surrounded them.

By nightfall, extraordinarily, the police had vanished from the streets - too scared, protesters said, to keep up the fight.

But events were already taking a twist that was not in Muhammed Abdel-Fatah's textbook.

It was not just riot police who disappeared, but all police - and terror began to stalk the streets of Cairo.

Divided regime

Vigilantes armed with guns, clubs and machetes threatened any stranger as they sought to defend their neighbourhoods against looters, escaped prisoners and thugs they said were hired by the regime.

Were the authorities deliberately encouraging disorder to justify their continued rule? The government denied it, but it was clear already that the regime was divided.

"There was a miscalculation in implementation," a former senior police official told me, referring to the handling of the protests.

Soon afterwards, interior minister Habib al-Adli was sacked.

In place of the police, the army were patrolling the streets. The military made clear it would not fire on demonstrators. It even declared their demands legitimate.

Protesters swarmed round tanks and handed soldiers flowers. But some saw already that the elation might be premature. In the thick of a massive opposition rally on 1 February, Heba Mourayef of Human Rights Watch said: "There may be divisions within the army that could lead to a chaotic situation that could spiral out of control."

The following morning, her fears already seemed realised as the regime began its fight-back.

Opposition rallies

Tens of thousands of Mubarak supporters streamed into central Cairo.

Egypt is not ready for democracy General Omar Suleiman, vice-president

"He's not going," they chanted. They insisted they were satisfied with his promise of the night before to stand down at the next presidential elections in September, and they argued that until then Egypt needed the stability of a smooth transition.

"Young people's requests have been met. The extremist elements should not be permitted to take over," the instigator of the counter-demonstration, the president's close friend and adviser Dr Ibrahim Kamal told me.

But it appeared there were extremist elements among the supporters of the government, as many, accompanied by galloping horses and camels, marched to Tahrir Square to hurl paving stones at the opposition.

Throughout the two days of pitched battles that followed, the army failed to intervene. But eventually it threw a security cordon around the square, apparently to protect the protesters.

'Desire for order'

When the defence minister and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, 75-year-old Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi himself ventured onto the square, he was greeted warmly by many.

But he did not say what was really on his mind.

And now, when Egypt's new vice-president, General Omar Suleiman, himself a life-long military man, warns of a possible coup d'etat if the current turmoil continues, no-one can be sure if he is thinking of a coup in defence of President Mubarak - or against him.

What is certain though, is that however much Egypt's leaders care about the president, they care much more about the military, and the police-dominated system that has put down deep roots since the monarchy was overthrown in 1952.

It has enabled some top officials to acquire substantial fortunes, but at the cost of many human rights. It has also maintained a stability that millions of ordinary Egyptians prize.

The regime's calculation is that it can use that desire for order, buttressed by further economic concessions such as the new pay rise for government workers, and by an offer of dialogue with the opposition, to maintain most of the existing system in place.

Egypt, General Omar Suleiman said yesterday, is not ready for democracy.

The protesters on Tahrir Square, even in their hundreds of thousands, still face an uphill task to prove him wrong.

Watch a special edition of Newsnight about Egypt's revolution on Wednesday 9 February 2011 at 10.30pm on BBC Two, and then afterwards on the BBC iPlayer and Newsnight website.

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