The pictures of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Wednesday, ill and lying on a stretcher, were tough to digest. Mubarak, together with his sons, was placed in a steel cage at the police academy in Cairo as his trial began on charges of economic corruption, striking an illegal business deal involving gas exports to Israel, and ordering the unlawful killing of protesters during the Tahrir Square uprising. Who in the 1970s could have imagined that the day would come when Israel, Egypt's great mythological enemy, would express genuine remorse at the tragic end of the hero of the Egyptian side of the Yom Kippur War? During that conflict, Mubarak was a senior figure behind what nearly became the third great destruction of the Jewish state in Israel. He was later one of Israel's greatest hopes for regional peace. Mr. Mubarak, it is sad how you were humiliated by your own people, how you were given the same treatment and even the same prison uniform as Halid Islambuli, Anwar Sadat's assassin. To optimists, Mubarak's trial shows the genuine Egyptian desire for honest democracy. The trial that began Wednesday against the former president is a seal of approval of sorts for the events at Tahrir Square that launched the Egyptian revolution. To the optimists, the revolution won't be complete until the corrupt former leader is brought to justice. Alaa Al Aswany, one of the most important living Egyptian writers, has been scathing in his criticism of the former Egyptian president. In his most popular work, 2002's "The Yacoubian Building," Al Aswany tells of Egyptian poverty from the perspective of the residents of a dilapidated apartment building in the center of Cairo. But Al Aswany, who trained as a dentist before becoming a writer, refused to allow his book, which was translated into at least 20 languages, to become a tool for the Palestinian cause or those opposed to normalizing cultural relations with Israel. Mubarak believed in the peace process with Israel. The liberal Al Aswany, the youth of Tahrir Square, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafi Islamists, who last week finally came out of the closet, are all united by their opposition to that process. And what about the pessimists? They view Mubarak's trial as yet another avenue through which to erode the relationship between Egypt and Israel. They believe that since February that relationship has been sliding downhill. To the pessimists, the trial will not bring about democracy. Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, head of the current ruling military council in Egypt, did not want this trial to proceed. But just as he acquiesced to the crowds and betrayed his patron Mubarak while serving as defense minister, he once again bowed to the public's demands for a trial. Tantawi understands that the trial may be a personal threat to him as well. One of Mubarak's attorneys has already asked the court to order Tantawi to appear as a witness in the case. Meanwhile, in Damascus, Syrian President Bashar Assad had a hard time choosing which television channel to watch. Should he choose the one showing the bloody riots on his streets, or switch to the one featuring a live broadcast of Mubarak's trial, which may also be a sign of things to come for him ...-
Who would have believed, a mere six months ago, that this would be the fate of such a pro-Western Arab leader, an esteemed and important man, courted by the likes of presidents and prime ministers, from Bush and Blair to Chirac, Mitterrand and Reagan, whenever they needed something from the Arab world-
