Why Egypt’s popular rebellion is the greatest historical event in a decade, and how Barack Obama missed the boat

ليس هناك جيش أقوي من فكرة حان وقتها

(Above: No army is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.)

I’m writing this on January 28th, 2011, at 11:53 AM Cairo time, although I’m an ocean away from Cairo. But, as someone wrote the other day on Twitter, yesterday, we were all Tunisian; today, we are all Egyptian, and tomorrow, we will all be free. So today I am writing this on Cairo time.

Three days ago, I read Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. He delivered it on the same day that the #Jan25 protests began in Egypt. I was dismayed that he didn’t mention the protests at all, because they’re more important than almost everything he did mention. This essay is an attempt to explain why they are so important, why Obama ignored them, and what the possible results of that choice could be.

For readers who don’t know much about Egypt, like most Americans, here’s my attempt to sum up a country of 80 million people in three minutes."