Obama: 'Cooperation cannot continue as usual when civilians are being killed, rights rolled back'

[BumRushDaShow]

24. The one factor that I rarely see discussed

is the fact that this country has a very strong merchant class that has evolved over the centuries and every time there are mass protests and national instability, the "small business" folks suddenly rise up because their livelihoods are majorly impacted.

When I was in Egypt a little over 20 years ago, when you go along the main streets of Cairo, you see alley after alley after alley filled with vendors. This isn't counting all the tourist cities like Luxor and Aswan, and Abu Simbel, and others in between, up and down the country. I.e., all the media shows is Cairo, but few talk about the rest of the country, other than a few tossed out comments about some unrest in the other cities.

Don't know how this will play out but the last couple times (after 9/11 & the "Arab Spring" periods), the merchants started rearing up and things started settling down in an uneasy truce. We shall see.