Mubarak's stinking regime has prevailed for the same reason that most other right-wing dictatorships have prevailed. All you have to do is get into bed with the West. They give you money (and don't ask awkward questions about what you do with it) and use their intelligence services to undermine your opponents. What the west desperately needs in the region, and what it has bought for itself with Egypt, is a large, compliant, populous Arab state that will not oppose Israel. Believe me, there is no appetite in the west for regime change in Egypt. Mubarak is a friend of the west and it doesn't matter what else he does as far as we're concerned. You won't be hearing calls from western leaders for free and fair elections, just simpering pleas for there to be no violence on the part of the regime. When Dubya called for freedom and democracy he only meant in states that were a bit unfriendly. He didn't call for it in Saudi Arabia who are such good economic allies or in Iraq when we were arming Saddam to the teeth against Iran even when we knew he was gassing Kurds. Egypt is just another sorry upshot of inept and wrong-headed western foreign policy. I dread to think what will happen there if there's a political vacuum once Mubarak goes. I don't see a saviour on the horizon.