Three US warships dispatched to Egypt signal that Washington is stepping up efforts to secure the embattled regime of Hosni Mubarak.

As millions of Egyptian people persist in nationwide protests against the US-backed regime, Washington’s envoy to the North African country, Frank Wisner, has said that Mubarak must remain in power to oversee an “orderly transition” that US president Barack Obama has urged.

On Sunday, more than two million people were estimated to have gathered in Tahrir (liberation) Square in the capital, Cairo, for what was dubbed the Day of Martyrs, during which protesters paid tribute to the more than 300 who were killed by the regime over the last two weeks.

There is widespread and growing anger among demonstrators towards the US government, which the people see as being complicit with Mubarak’s dictatorship and preventing them from achieving their demands for its dismantlement and for the establishment of full democracy in their country.

Washington has bankrolled the Mubarak regime with $1.5 billion a year for the past 30 years. Much of this support is in the form of military equipment and training. The people on the streets of Egypt are all too aware that their country was turned into a giant US-serving military garrison and torture chamber thanks to Washington’s cash. Mubarak, who ruled his country with an iron fist against his people on behalf of the US, is estimated to have amassed a personal family fortune of $70 billion for his loyal services to Washington. 

Despite the shocking violence inflicted on civilian protesters by state security forces and agents, Washington refuses to cut off its money flow to the Egyptian regime. Hollow and cynical rhetoric from US president Obama countenancing the protesters’ rights and demands for democracy is fooling no-one in Egypt. The US government is clearly on the side of the regime and the people know it.

Now, it seems, Washington is stepping up its intervention, with the arrival of three warships, including an aircraft carrier and over 800 troops. The Pentagon denies that it is planning to intervene militarily in the Egyptian revolution, saying that the warships are to oversee any evacuation of American personnel from the country that may become necessary.

Such claims ring hollow. As US secretary of state Hillary Clinton let slip recently when she described the uprising in Egypt (and across the region) as a “perfect storm” for US interests, Washington cannot afford to “lose” the most populous Arab country to democracy. Put another way, Washington’s geopolitical influence would be severely hampered, indeed overturned, if the Egyptian people succeed in freeing themselves from under the US boot. The fatal ramifications for Washington’s other garrison in the region, Israel, and for the Pentagon’s criminal wars of imperialism cannot be understated.

While Washington may maneouvre a new political face in Egypt under the guise of an “orderly transition”, the essential fact is this: Washington has to and will at all costs defend its Egyptian garrison. What’s at stake is not just whether democracy is won by the people of Egypt. What’s at stake is the US empire.

To that end, false flags, such as the blowing up of crucial oil supply routes via the Red Sea to justify US intervention for the sake of protecting “vital national interests” or a self-inflicted atrocity against US personnel, and the stepping up of the spurious Western mainstream media propaganda drive to paint the revolution in Egypt as an “Islamic threat”, can be expected.

Finian Cunningham is a journalist and musician: [email protected], www.myspace.com/finiancunninghammusic