The Drumbeat Continues

Instead of isolated incidents, these now seem to be the trend in the Middle East.

About 500 protesters gathered outside Cairo University Monday to urge Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to abstain from seeking a fifth term.

The protest was organized by the Egyptian Movement for Change, which warned Mubarak against grooming his son, Jamal, "to inherit him."

The protesters shouted anti-Mubarak slogans and called for amending the constitution to allow the election of the president by universal suffrage instead of a referendum on a single candidate approved by Parliament.

Here's more on Lebanon, from Amir Taheri:

UNTIL a week ago, the courtyard of the Muhammad Ali-Amin Mosque in central Beirut was a quiet place where elderly citizens took time off to feed the pigeons. Yesterday, however, it held the largest gathering Lebanon has ever seen.

This was the culmination of a week in which an endless flow of people from all walks of life and different faiths had continued in and out of the mosque united by a single purpose: to call for a restoration of Lebanon's freedom and independence as a nation. . . .

Did Damascus see Hariri as the only politician capable of uniting the Lebanese opposition against Syria's continued domination of virtually all aspects of Lebanon's life?

If so, it was correct — but only in the context of Lebanon's elite-dominated politics. Yet Hariri's murder has ended elite politics by bringing into the picture a new element.

That element is people power, the same force that swept away the totalitarian regimes of Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s and, more recently, led Ukraine into a second liberation.