@PJCrowley The #Egyptian government can’t reshuffle the deck and then stand pat. President #Mubarak’s words pledging reform must be followed by action.

The Century Foundation’s Michael Wahid Hanna notes that Egypt President Hosni Mubarak’s call for the Egyptian military to deploy in and around the robust protesting crowds in Cairo could cut either way.

What is going on in Egypt now reminds me of the fall of Suharto in Indonesia, the expulsion of and collapse of Marco in the Philippines, the overthrow of Romania’s Ceausescu, and of course the Green Movement in Iran.

This is very big. The regime may not fall — but the game is changed in Egypt and best I can tell the US does not have a set of contingency scenarios for political change there.

Word is breaking that John McCain’s long time aide and many decades long alter ego, Mark Salter, is the author behind O: A Presidential Novel. Truth in advertising first. I haven’t read the novel, though I really like the graphics of the “O” and the “ears” as well as the brilliant blue of the cover….

Visit msnbc.

Please join the New America Foundation’s American Strategy Program/Middle East Task Force TODAY from 12:15 – 1:45 for a discussion with Ambassador Chas. W. Freeman, touching on themes from his new book “America’s Misadventures in the Middle East.

At the 3rd Talking Points Memo Policy Roundtable hosted at the New America Foundation, State Department Policy Planning Director Anne-Marie Slaughter will share her views on America’s international engagement — particularly regarding the world’s crisis and not yet crisis (but almost) regions.

This is a very useful look back at what President Obama stated he wanted to accomplish one year ago. Kudos to the HuffPost‘s Shahien Nasiripour and Sam Stein for writing it.

I am in full agreement with Susan Rice: Statement by Ambassador Susan E. Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, January 25, 2011 I am appalled by the recent personal blog written by Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.