Hosni Mubarak resigned as of this morning, ending a 30-year rule as Egypt's head of state and leaving control in the hands of Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces—the leaders of the Egyptian military.
With Egypt's military leaders now at the country's helm, what the future of the reform movement will look like is anybody's guess. But here's a look back at what we've learned—and are still learning—about the Egyptian military, and what this could mean for where things are headed.
Who sits on Egypt's now-ruling military council—and what might they do?
Al Jazeera has a look at a few of the key leaders on the council. Several were members of the cabinet Mubarak appointed in an early—and fruitless—attempt to appease the protesters. Among them are Vice President Omar Suleiman, who announced Mubarak's resignation today, and Defense Minister Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the man described by some in the army as "Mubarak's poodle."
"There are two directions the Higher Military Council can go," former army General Samah Seif El Yazal told the BBC. "The first is to ask the existing government to run the country for a transitional period of perhaps a year. The other option is for the military to run the country by committee. We are very anxious to hear from them about what they intend to do."
Mohamed ElBaradei, one of the leading voices in the protests, told Foreign Policy yesterday that he does not have "any confidence" that Suleiman or the "bunch of military people" can be a steward of a democratic transition. "They don't understand, let alone are willing to move Egypt into democracy, unless we keep kicking their behinds," ElBaradei said.
The Egyptian military has long been a force behind the throne.
"Egypt's government is not so much a Mubarak government as it is a military government," Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Bloomberg last month, when the protests had only gone on for a week.
Let's not forget, after all, that since the Egyptian military led a coup in 1952 and ended the country's rule under the British monarchy, all three of the country's presidents—including Mubarak—have been military men. (Hosni Mubarak's son, Gamal Mubarak, had long been believed to be a potential successor to the presidency—an idea that top military officials hated. Gamal, after all, had no background in the military.)
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, on the ground in Cairo, cautioned that the new leadership—more or less the old leadership without Mubarak—may want to keep a "Mubarak-style government without Mubarak."
The Egyptian military has internal rifts and divided loyalties.
As we noted earlier this week, U.S. embassy cables describe some of the military's internal divisions, particularly between the mid-level officers and the organization's leadership. Here's what we wrote:
One cable describes mid-level army officers as "disgruntled" and particularly critical of Egyptian Defense Minister Mohamed Tantawi, whom they saw as too subservient to Mubarak's regime. … Another cable, this one from 2008, describes Tantawi as opposed to "economic and political reforms that he perceives as eroding central government power."
The Egyptian military has a substantial hold on the country's economy—and its leaders have a financial in interest in preserving that.
Given that one of the protesters' many grievances is the lack of economic reform and the country's high unemployment, it's surprising how little attention has been paid to the military's entrenched role in Egypt's current economy.
Very little is actually known about the military's finances or precisely how its operates (apart, of course, from the fact that it gets $1.3 billion annually in U.S. aid.)
This U.S. embassy cable from 2008 gives a glimpse of the Egyptian military's holdings:
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