By Jed Babbin - February 2, 2011

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's Tuesday promise to not run for reelection does not mean his government will survive through the scheduled September contest.

Whether his regime falls now or leaves of its own accord later will not be decided in Washington, DC or the New York Times' editorial boardroom. Neither will the choice of his successor, who - unless the Egyptian armed forces choose to intervene - may tilt Egypt into the radical Islamist sphere now dominated by Iran.

In his brief Tuesday evening remarks, President Obama did a good job of pretending that we have significant influence on the events in Egypt which will determine who rules in Mubarak's place. But he did say one thing that will influence events there: that transition in Egypt "must be meaningful, it must be peaceful, and it must begin now.” By that remark, he threw our lot with the demonstrators who seek Mubarak's immediate removal and made Mubarak's time to organize any transition even more limited than they were before.

In fact, America has lost the ability to influence the shape of post-Mubarak Egypt and it faces growing crises in another moderate Arab state, Jordan, which has been solidly pro-American since the advent of King Abdullah's reign. This loss of influence is apparently misunderstood or, to borrow a malapropism from a former president, misunderestimated by the Obama administration and its media surrogates.

The only stabilizing force is the Egyptian military which has the power, and perhaps the motivation, to prevent Egypt from being subordinated by its Islamic neighbors.

The Mubarak regime is a lineal descendant of Gamel Abdel Nasser's, who seized power in 1952. Nasser was a pan-Arabist, fervently attempting to ally Arabs in a unified front against Israel, leading to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Pan-Arabism has since disappeared except from the mind of Libya's Muammar Qaddafi, and the parallel Iranian goal of establishing a Muslim caliphate hasn't taken hold in Egypt yet because of the three men who have ruled it for nearly sixty years.

When Nasser died in 1970, one of his protégés, Anwar al-Sadat, took over. It was Sadat who braved the Arab currents to sign the Camp David Accords, the first real peace agreement between Israel and a formerly-hostile neighbor. Sadat was assassinated by Muslim radicals in 1981 because of his willingness to make peace with Israel in the Camp David agreement. Mubarak swept into power at Sadat's death.

Two factors will control the result of the crisis that now envelops the Mubarak regime. The first is the Egyptian military. The second is the efforts of Iran and Syria - independently and in combination with Egyptian Islamists - to turn Egypt into another Syria or a satellite of Iran.

Since Mubarak came to power, the Egyptian military has been closely tied to ours as a reward for Sadat's courage in agreeing to the Camp David accords. We have sold about $1.2 billion in military equipment to Egypt annually and hundreds of its officers have attended military schools here and exercised with our forces. But that doesn't mean the Egyptian military is "westernized" in its culture.

As one very senior retired Israeli officer told me, the Egyptian army didn't become communist when it was heavily equipped (rather more than it needed) by the Soviet Union. In 1973 they even expelled the Soviets from Egypt. We cannot expect that the Egyptian army will have become a democratic force as a result of our deep connections with it. That source emphasized that the Egyptian army's deep rooted culture and mentality will prevail.

A senior American military source who trained with Egyptian forces for years echoed those thoughts and added this: the Egyptian army's officer corps is loyal to Mubarak, at least up to a point. But they will resist a radical regime. Though they aren't well-trained by US standards because they have little funding to train, the officers and men have some prestige in Egyptian society which they wish to maintain. Though the enlisted men in Egyptian forces are very poorly paid - again reflecting Egypt's weak economy and consistent failure to spend enough to create and train effective forces - they are loyal to their officers.

On Monday, the Egyptian military proclaimed it would not use violence against the Cairo demonstrators. But that does not mean it will remain on the sidelines indefinitely.

But what if, when Mubarak falls, a more radical government rises in its place? Another senior American military source opined that the Egyptian military would not permit a radical Islamic regime like the Tehran Ayatollahs from taking control. But given Egypt's culture and its military's low-paid status, it's entirely possible that a new Islamist regime could purchase the military's loyalty. That is the most likely scenario if radical Islamic influence - from inside Egypt and emanating from Iran and Syria - manage to tip the balance their way.

There is very little evidence to support the American media's assumption that the Cairo demonstrators and those who are maneuvering to take power are a democratic force. The "National Coalition for Change", which includes several opposition groups seeking power upon Mubarak's fall, includes the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood, as Andy McCarthy has written, has been a force in Egyptian politics for nearly a century, and is dedicated to establishing Islamic rule. Its support for terrorism is too well-established to document here. The Brotherhood had expressed support for Mohammed el-Baradei (former head of the UN's purblind nuclear watchdog, the IAEA) to replace Mubarak, but is now hedging its bet. With or without el-Baradei, the Brotherhood's strong position in the rebellion against Mubarak is significant evidence of the push from inside and outside Egypt to make it an Islamic state.

While Egyptians (and others) demonstrating in front of Egypt's Washington embassy are pleading for democracy, a December 2010 Pew Research poll found that a majority of Egyptians (as well as Lebanese, Jordanians and Nigerians) would welcome a more forceful role for Islam in their nation's politics.

Among Egyptians, Pew found, 59% identify with the fundamentalists rather than reformers. Those who are sympathetic to fundamentalists would support a new Egyptian government more allied with Syria and Iran and against Israel.

It is not clear that Mubarak's regime will survive the week. Whether it falls this week or in coming months, Egypt's immediate future will be decided by the Egyptian military. If, as is most likely, the military remains on the sidelines and allows a radical regime to take power, Egypt - like Turkey before it - may pass into the radical Islamic sphere. And there is nothing America can do to prevent that. With one exception.

Many of our most senior generals have longstanding relationships with their Egyptian comrades, the kind of bond that can only be achieved by serving side by side in training and military exercises. These officers, if the president permits them, should be on the phone with their Egyptian comrades to offer assurances of aid and support if they choose to stand against a radical Islamic regime. That, and only that, would be an effective American influence on Egypt's immediate future.