"There will be blood"

"... In language often chillingly Orwellian, Suleiman blamed the street protests on a "plot" by unnamed foreign and Egyptian elements, warned that the disruptions that had already cost Egypt more than $1 billion could no longer be tolerated, and ordered all opposition groups to accept that Mubarak would remain in control until the next election ...

Pro-Mubarak thugs fought through the night using stones, gasoline bombs and sometimes gunfire to drive the protesters from Cairo's Tahrir Square, but by dawn the anti-Mubarak forces not only held the square but had pushed the regime's supporters back. Fighting continued throughout the day, and while the army appeared at times to be doing more than it had on Wednesday to keep the sides, its intentions remained unclear. TIME received reports on Thursday claiming that in some areas around the square, the army appeared to be cooperating with the pro-regime forces. So while the protesters have vowed to hold a massive march to Mubarak's residence on Friday to demand his resignation, the signals from Suleiman and Mubarak suggest that the authorities are shaping up to reclaim control of the streets in a violent crackdown... The impression that regime tactics are about to get even uglier was underscored on Thursday by what appeared to be a campaign by the authorities to drive journalists off the streets. Many journalists have been arrested and a number of reporters and networks have had their equipment seized by security officials. An official close to the government told TIME that the Ministry of Defense had issued orders for the arrest of foreign journalists....

Mubarak, for his part, blamed the Muslim Brotherhood for the violence on the streets. The BBC reported that Suleiman and Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq had, in fact, met with some opposition figures in Cairo on Thursday, in what diplomats called a "cordial but inconsequential" encounter.

Suleiman has thrown down a gauntlet to the Obama Administration and other Western allies of Egypt that have pinned their hopes on the Mubarak regime's beginning an immediate political transition. For now, the regime's plan is to hold on to power and put an end to the protest movement. And to do that, it will have to ignore Washington's demand that it refrain from violence in order to reclaim the streets. With protesters digging in to hold on to Tahrir Square, it's looking increasingly likely that if Suleiman's promises are implemented, there will be blood. The question is whether there's any further leverage that the U.S and its allies are willing or able to exercise in order to change Mubarak's mind.

The depth of Suleiman's cynicism was revealed by his closing remark: "I would say to the youth: We thank you for what you did; you were the spark that ignited reform in this time." Then he warned the protesters to go home, lest they become tools of a foreign plot that the Mubarak regime would quash."