Can Mubarak survive?

Increasingly, it appears that the Egyptian dictator is on his last legs. Massive protests are being planned and the only way to get people back in their homes may be to go the Iranian route; shooting protestors down in the streets.

Reminder: When the Shah of Iran was confronted with this kind of situation, he abdicated. Whether the Egyptian army would go through with mass slaughter of their own people is the question being asked by Mubarak today.

In truth, Mubarak's position is very weak. So weak that he has taken the draconian step of cutting off the internet in Egypt , thus isolating that country from the rest of the world:

Confirming what a few have reported this evening: in an action unprecedented in Internet history, the Egyptian government appears to have ordered service providers to shut down all international connections to the Internet. Critical European-Asian fiber-optic routes through Egypt appear to be unaffected for now. But every Egyptian provider, every business, bank, Internet cafe, website, school, embassy, and government office that relied on the big four Egyptian ISPs for their Internet connectivity is now cut off from the rest of the world. Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, Etisalat Misr, and all their customers and partners are, for the moment, off the air.

The Egyptian dissident Mohamed ElBaradei warned President Hosni Mubarak today that his regime is on its last legs, as tens of thousands of people prepared to take to the streets for a fourth day of anti-government protests.

The Nobel peace prize winner's comments to the Guardian represented his strongest intervention against the country's authoritarian government since he announced his intention to return to Egypt to join the protests. "I'm sending a message to the Guardian and to the world that Egypt is being isolated by a regime on its last legs," he said.

His words marked an escalation of the language he used on arrival in Cairo last night, when he merely urged the Mubarak government to "listen to the people" and not to use violence.

ElBaradei has been criticised by some Egyptians for the late return to his homeland, two days after the protests began - hundreds of people have already been arrested and exposed to the brutal tactics of the security services. But ElBaradei was keen to stress his solidarity with the protesters.

"There is of course a risk to my safety today, but it's a risk worth taking when you see your country in such a state you have to take risks," he said. "I will be with the people today."

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that ElBaradei is under house arrest.

It's hard to see how this will end up without there being enormous bloodshed or Mubarak slinking off to Saudi Arabia or some other Arab country. If that were to occur, the likelihood is that there would be a caretaker government of some kind until elections could be held. With the Muslim Brotherhood the most popular party in the country according to some polls, the prospect of another radical jihadist group in charge of a government becomes possible.