The hope of a clean sweep of democratic revolution toppling authoritarian regimes is receding, as an increasing number of Egyptian protesters wonder if they weren’t hapless pawns in the soft coup that the Supreme Council of the Armed Force (SCAF) carried out against President Hosni Mubarak. The past six months show that regime change doesn’t mean revolution. ~Dilip Hiro

What happened in Egypt in February was not regime change. Perhaps it is because many in the West have unduly personalized policies toward authoritarian governments that we often associate policies of regime change with removing individual dictators from power. For that reason, some confuse Mubarak’s fall from power with a change in regime, but the Egyptian military regime never went anywhere, and it is has shown few signs that it has any intention to change meaningfully from within. To be blunt, it was pretty obvious six months ago that Egypt had experienced a coup rather than a revolution, but because the coup produced the immediate result the protesters wanted everyone seemed willing to pretend that it was better not to call it a coup. What Hiro is calling regime change is just the deposition of a ruler and his family. The “foundations that supported the previous regime” are what have made up the military regime all along, and we cannot accurately refer to a change of regime so long as the Egyptian military continues to hold most or all of the political power in Egypt.