The propaganda machine of the Empire and its super-rich and middle-class allies are hard at work to sway Egyptians away from the Iranian option http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2011/03/empire’s-new-“democratic”-plan-for-the-middle-east/

There are reasons to believe that the youth uprising on January 25 and the ensuing few days were prepared and organized by individuals some of whom had received “democracy training” by the “democracy industry” in the U.S., in particular by Freedom House. This uprising started the mass revolt that led to Mubarak’s downfall. Its demands, slogans, and tempo in the first few days framed the scope and defined the parameters of the uprising. What was quite strange about the demonstrations was the absence of anti-Israeli, anti-U.S., and pro-Palestinian slogans and sentiments.

To suggest that the recent mass revolt in Egypt involved some form of uprising engineering is not to say that the Empire wanted to overthrow Mubarak. Rather, if it could no longer keep him in power, it wanted to ensure that the leadership of the uprising that would end up overthrowing him would not fall into the hands of groups or individuals with agendas inimical to the Empire’s interests. And if this could be managed successfully, the structures of dictatorship that protect the Empire’s interests (transnational economic elites and the military-commercial complex of the army) would not be threatened or smashed.