Mubarak Exit Looks Like Obama Win, For Now

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In the immediate wake of fast-moving and still ambiguous events coming out Egypt Friday, the news that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has really and truly stepped down, it's hard to see how it's not an immediate political win for President Obama.

For nearly two weeks, Obama was criticized by both those who wanted more robust signs of support for the Egyptian protesters demanding true democratic reforms and those who wanted him to double down on the Egyptian president as a solid American ally of long-standing.

While the president clearly didn't make either side happy, his tilt towards the Egyptian people was obvious in virtually every statement that emanated from the White House.

In the end, the anti-Mubarak protesters provided enough street heat to force out the strongman of three-decades duration, with the Egyptian military taking control of the Arab nation.

So on the surface it appears the president made the right bet though much rides on what happens now.

If the military fails to move fast enough to hold free and fair elections or if free and fair elections are held the new government becomes decidedly anti-U.S. and anti-Israel, then there'll be furious second-guessing of the rightness of the president's approach to Egypt.

But for the time being, it looks like events have worked out as well as they could have for Obama. Having enjoyed the fruits of democracy for two centuries, Americans across the ideological spectrum tend to want their president to support demands for democracy elsewhere.

The disagreements have occurred over how to achieve it, that is, through military force or less violent means.

The Obama administration's support for the aspirations of the Egyptian people and open, sometimes testy questioning of how Mubarak planned to move his nation towards a transition to democracy appears to be on the right side of history.

It even had some bipartisan support, with Obama's 2008 Republican rival for the White House, Sen. John McCain, saying that Mubarak had to go.

While there are more questions than answers right now about Egypt's future, one thing is likely true about the autocrats in the region as a whole; the message of Obama's 2009 Cairo speech probably has a new and scary resonance for them. He said: