Whither Egypt?

Mubarak has resigned and gone off to his retirement home, turning the government over to the Egyptian military. At this point you hear pundits waxing rhapsodic about the thirst for democracy this event represents. An example of this was in last night's Shields and Brooks segment on the PBS News Hour.

I say mistaking a revolution for democracy is nonsense. All we can say for sure at this point is that many of the Egyptian people sure-as-heck didn't want Hosni Mubarak to continue in office.

Tonight those same people seem delighted with the military in control, and military governments are rarely bottom-up democratic. A more accurate description would be top-down autocratic.

Will Egypt end up a Western-style democracy? Maybe so, but the odds are against it. We will have to wait and see. The outcome is up to the Egyptians, not up to us.