Zewail: Mubarak Must Immediately Step Down and Allow for a Transitional Government

 “He should step down tomorrow and allow for a transitional government,” Zewail told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.
 
Despite all his access to the ruling elite, Zewail said his own efforts over 15 years to promote science, technology and education in Egypt had proved futile against the dead weight of corruption and bureaucracy. 
 
“I thought in the beginning there might be a middle ground, but I’m not sure any more,” he said. “In a situation like that, you cannot negotiate. You cannot slow things down.”
 
Comparing Egypt to a “diseased body,” he recommended swift surgery, not aspirin.
 
“I know exactly what the youth want. They want to see a new Egypt. It’s as simple of that,” said Zewail, who serves as US President Barack Obama’s science envoy to the Middle East.
 
“It’s a transformative point,” he said of the popular unrest aimed at ending Mubarak’s 30 years in power. Turbulence has shaken Egypt and the Arab world. “This is a paradigm shift.”
 
Zewail said he has no interest in insulting Mubarak or attacking him personally.
 
“It’s an attack on the whole system, which was corrupt and not functioning properly. Egypt deserves a new, fresh system, a new window on the world.”
 
He brushed aside arguments about constitutional tangles that could impede a transition to democracy were Mubarak to resign on the spot, saying the right mechanisms could be found.
 
“The question is do we have the will to do it and to do it in a speedy way to end this problem so everybody can go back to work and set the country on a new trajectory.”
 
He dismissed the idea that the Muslim Brotherhood might hijack events or that Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel was in peril, saying democracy could only benefit the region.