Mubarak took power in 1981. Reagan, 1980. Thirty years. The tipping point for massive change.

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The Pharaoh reacted to the Intifada by swiftly appointing his "suave" intelligence czar, Omar Suleiman, as vice president (the first since the Pharaoh took power in 1981), and virtual successor. Suleiman is a sinisterly suave Central Intelligence Agency-trusted "rendition" expert who has supervised countless torture sessions of alleged "terrorists" in Egyptian soil; the English-speaking lord of an Arabic Guantanamo. The Washington establishment is not exactly displeased.

Yet imperialists should take note: the last time the Egyptian street gelled this way was during the 1919 revolution against the British. Now, for Muslims and Christians, the working class, the middle class, the unemployed masses, lawyers, judges, scholars from al-Azhar University, students, peasants, theologians, independent journalists and bloggers, Muslim Brotherhood activists, the National Association for Change, the April 6th movement, for all them the days of Mubarak's Animal Farm are numbered.

Five opposition movements - including the Muslim Brotherhood - have mandated ElBaradei to negotiate the formation of a transitional "national salvation government". The odds that the Pharaoh will negotiate anything are next to zero.

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I (Pepe Escobar) spent two months in Cairo and Alexandria in early 2003 waiting for the Bush invasion of Iraq - and hanging out mostly with the ocean of rejects of the Mubarak system, from college graduates to Sudanese immigrants, including dejected representatives of the 40% of the population that lives on less than $2 a day. Needless to say, all of them viewed Mubarak as a repulsive Washington poodle - and were in shock at the fate of Iraq, historically revered in Egypt as the eastern flank of the Arab nation. Their outlook of the regime was of the "throw the bums into the Nile" kind.

It was all very enlightening - and very painful - to experience on the ground the consequences of the Mubarak regime being a dutiful pupil of US-enforced neo-liberalism. Inevitable consequences were high inflation and widespread unemployment. The urban middle class had practically disappeared. The working class was subdued via ironclad control of unions. And the rural middle class - the regime's former base - also dwindled as more young people had to go urban to find a job (they didn't). What survived was a small, corrupt state-connected business class (most of whom are now scurrying off to Dubai on private jets).

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Million-Person March Planned as Elbaradei made Opposition Leader

Protesters in downtown Cairo on Monday morning were calling for a general strike. On Tuesday, they said they will launch a ‘million-person march,’ clearly with the aim of toppling the Mubarak government.

On Sunday, a multi-party coalition of oppositionists had formed a 10-man committee to head their movement. The leader of the committee, in turn, is Mohamed Elbaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Elbaradei came down to Tahrir Square in the city center and addressed the thousands assembled there, to rapturous applause.

The Muslim Brotherhood is among the parties in the coalition backing Elbaradei. Their leadership may feel that having a secular person as the face of the movement will cut down on the fears of budding theocracy and threats of Western intervention.

Also among the proposed steering committee is long-time Mubarak opponent Ayman Nour. He had run against Mubarak in 2005, and was promptly jailed when the official statistics showed he had only garnered about 8 percent of the vote. Nour, head of the Tomorrow (al-Ghad) Party, had earlier proposed that the major opposition parties form an alternative parliament, which could then oversee the transition to full democracy. Elbaradei now seems to be endorsing this idea.

Meanwhile, further statements from Hosni Mubarak and his regime give a sense of his current strategy.

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But as one Egyptian woman said, “If they fire on the Egyptian people, Mubarak is finished . . . And if they don’t fire on the Egyptian people, Mubarak is finished.”

The Holy Grail was always to fully mobilize the masses. Last week, they finally crossed over. The Kefaya-influenced young still prefer popular committees over politicians to guide this revolution on the go. The pulse of the streets seems to point to many Egyptians not wanting any political or religious ideology to monopolize what is essentially a liquid, pluralistic, multiform movement bent on radically reforming the country and propelling it as a new model for the whole Arab world.

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London School of Economics professor Fawaz Gerges has pointed out all this "goes beyond Mubarak. The barrier of fear has been removed. It is really the beginning of the end of the status quo in the region." It is in fact bigger; it's a graphic example of grassroots, organic political activism.

Or, in the elite speak of US foreign policy guru Dr Zbigniew Brzezinski, this is his dreaded "global political awakening" in action - the Generation Y across the developing world, angry, restless, outraged, emotionally shattered, mostly unemployed, stripped of their dignity, acting out their revolutionary potential and turning the status quo upside down (even with the Pharaoh promoting the biggest Internet blackout in history).

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The younger generation - empowered by the feeling of being on the right side of history - will be crucial.

They won't accept an optical illusion of regime change that ensures continuous "stability". They won't accept being hijacked by the US and Europe and presented with a new puppet. What they want is the shock of the new; a truly sovereign government, no more neo-liberalism, and a new Middle East political order. Expect the counter-revolution to be fierce. And extending way beyond a few bunkers in Cairo.