For one thing, I don't really have one, but for another, I've seen no evidence democracy has a dog in this fight. I've seen lots of violence from both sides, sectarian murder in the last month and nationalist murder in the past few years, but nothing to indicate Mubarak is likely to be replaced any time soon except by a regime as authoritarian, repressive, brutal and violent as his, if not more so. In between terrorising foreigners, torching government buildings and hurling homemade bombs at cops, what reform policies have been suggested? IF (and I'm not convinced either way, though I don't like the little I've seen) the only difference Mubarak represents is brutality and sectarian murder on a smaller scale, yes, that's preferrable to simply expanding the scope of brutality and sectarian murder--which is why Egyptian law gave its president emergency powers to impose martial law. It's ironic and telling that people who feel that enacting that power was or is unjustified are justifying it so well right now.

Sure, Mid-Easterners are intelligent human beings; most of Iran is, much good as it does them under the mullahs. Unfortunately, the commentaries and analysis I've seen on the riots in Egypt (and, really, when you start burning buildings, terrorizing foreigners and throwing bombs you've crossed the line from "protester" to "rioter" ) all agree on two points:

1) Part of why Mubarak's lasted so long is because there are so few rivals who could supplant him and

2) If his government does topple it's almost a given the new government will be controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood.

That in turn implies several more things to me:

1) Even if everyone votes freely, Sayyid Qutbs philosophical heirs will win the majority,

2) Their hold on power will be tenuous and, consequently,

3) Their need to maintain control combined with the militant sectarianism and xenophobia Sayyid Qutb insitutionalized in the Muslim Brotherhood will mean repression and violence will not only continue, but be directed against anyone and everyone deemed dangerously Western/infidel/heretical.

Sure, not all Egyptians follow his corpse, but enough of them do to cause his imprisonment, just as the danger of him causing violent revolution was enough to get him executed. If you want to argue Egypt should've given Qutb and his student Iman Al Zawahiri fair trials before imprisoning them, I'll agree, but if you want to argue they'd make better Egyptian leaders than Mubarak simply because they can muster an electoral plurality I can't. Give me a reason to believe Mubarak isn't just the Shah all over again--in EVERY sense--and I might endorse what's happening in Egypt. The scale and extent of violence argue against that, as does the seemingly unanimous analyst view that removing Mubarak would simply install a government consisting of people who think violence against seemingly everyone not an orthodox (in their eyes) male Muslim is not only right but necessary.

Do NOT, however, make the mistake of assuming that because I don't endores Hitlers invasion of Poland I support Stalin. It's not my country and I have no right or ability to do anything but watch things play out on their own, but I've seen this scenario too many times to expect some miraculously new end game. Would I love to see a new government close down Mubaraks political prisons, end persecution, torture and murder? Unquestionably. Do I expect the Muslim Brotherhood government everyone agrees would replace Mubarak to do anything except torture decadent Westerners, indecent women, infidels and heretics in those same prisons when they aren't just brutalized or executed on the spot? Their "martyred" teachers distaste for "individual liberty" along with much else he saw in my country argues for exactly that, and that Al Zawahiri would be able to come home along with many of his friends. Democracy without individual liberty is patently absurd, so, no, this doesn't strike me as democracy vs. dictatorship, but rather as a competition over who should control the dictatorship the majority wants. Again, I don't have a dog in that fight.