Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Unrest in Egypt is in play, this is the third day of protests but the big day is tomorrow, Friday, and we need to see just what happens in terms of the critical mass developing, and the ability of the security forces to contain the unrest. Tomorrow will tell where things are going in a much more clear way.

Any Egyptian unrest needs to be placed into context. Everybody is looking at Tunisia as sort of the model, the template, and then gauging everybody else, every other country, and its unrest on that basis. Definitely Egypt has its vulnerabilities, but Egypt is very different from Tunisia, because Egypt has not been an authoritarian state along the lines of the Ben Ali regime in Tunisia.

What makes Egypt stand apart from every other case is that Egypt was already in a situation of transition because President Mubarak is ill and at an advanced age. There is already a succession process in play, so with these protests that are taking place and the big one that’s supposed to come tomorrow, they may exacerbate that pre-existing condition and really force the ruling National Democratic Party into a corner because it’s already struggling with the military in terms of how to proceed with the transition and now it’s seeing pressure from the streets and the fear is that in an extreme case scenario the military could actually align with the public to boot out the NDP and create a new system.

If the winds of change are blowing in Cairo, they are much, much more significant than any similar situation, say in Damascus, or Amman, or Riyadh, or some other Arab capital. Egypt is the largest Arab state in terms of population, and it is the center of the Arab world, the leader of the Arab world. Changes that take place in Cairo reverberate throughout the region and therefore Egypt is very important from the U.S. standpoint, because for decades it’s been the bedrock of stability in the region. The peace treaty between Egypt and Israel has been a key function of U.S. strategy in the region, so the question is if there is to be some form of regime change in Cairo will that disturb U.S. Egyptian relations in terms of Cairo being an American ally and of course will it change the nature of the Egyptian-Israeli relationship and that is the uncertain aspect of this entire unrest and transitionary period.