The "Mother of the World," as Egypt is known affectionately to its 80 million people, is in turmoil after six days of anti-government protests that have shaken the most populous Arab state, long considered as holding the key to the stability of the oil-rich Middle East.
A common mantra in the region is that if Egypt goes, other Arab countries will follow, which explains the virtual blanket coverage of events unfolding in Cairo and other major cities on all Middle Eastern television channels.
While the mass revolt that brought about regime change in Tunisia may have inspired the popular uprising against the leadership of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the stakes are much higher in Egypt, given its role as regional power broker and its military, economic and cultural influence within the Arab world.
Mubarak, 82, is a former air force pilot who has ruled Egypt since 1981 under emergency laws that were imposed following the assassination that year of Anwar Sadat, who paid the ultimate price for unilaterally breaking Arab ranks and concluding a peace treaty with Israel.
That peace treaty held despite opposition from Egyptian Islamists and other factions who saw it as a betrayal of the Arab and Palestinian cause.
Mubarak has since been re-elected in polls which many in Egypt deem farcical since the president regularly wins with more than 99% of the vote.
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Mubarak's National Democratic Party retains its dominant position in a country where the Muslim Brotherhood is legally banned from participating formally in elections, but where it enjoys sympathy among a large section of Egyptian society.
Should this balance of power shift in the land of the Pharaohs, where even the mummies at Cairo's museum have been disturbed by looters from their 2,000-year sleep, the rest of the Arab world will have cause to fear the potential stirring of Islamist tendencies.
In Saudi Arabia, the monarchy now directed by King Abdullah's regent has been actively suppressing al-Qaeda-inspired terrorists for nearly a decade, while Kuwait and Bahrain have had to cope with a rising threat from disgruntled Shi'ite Muslim constituents who have become more vocal in recent years.
Sudan is on the verge of splitting into two, Yemen is grappling with secessionists and separatists while Iraq is only just trying to find its democratic feet in an environment riven by sectarianism.
The unrest in Egypt, where more than 100 people had died by Sunday after five days of at times violent confrontations between protesters and police, could not have come at a worse time for Arab leaders, some of them absent from their thrones due to illness, as is the case with OPEC powerhouse Saudi Arabia, or grappling with internal pressures that are endemic to the region.
DEMOGRAPHIC TIME BOMB
Rising food prices, joblessness and the demographic time bomb of a disenfranchised youth that make up the majority of the populations of several Arab countries are a dangerous mix that has for long been sedated by state subsidies and handouts rather than the political reforms that the influential Egyptian street has given voice to.
The question now is not when but which of the Arab regimes will be next to face the wrath of their people with Yemen, Jordan and Algeria seen as particularly vulnerable and where some copy-cat protests have already been reported, albeit on a lesser scale.
Forgotten for now is the threat from Iran, which diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks late last year showed to be the predominant concern of Arab leaders in the Persian Gulf before the wave of anger unleashed in the streets of Cairo, Alexandria and other Arab centers.
Indeed, should the protests in Egypt result in the fall of one-party rule and lead to a leadership void in this Sunni Muslim bastion, Shi'ite Iran would stand to benefit by expanding its influence in the region beyond Iraq, where it now holds sway in the predominantly Shi'ite Muslim country still trying to find its feet after decades of wars, sanctions and the 2003 US-led invasion.
The fear of unrest spreading from Egypt to the rest of the Middle East has already made itself felt in oil markets, where futures prices rose on Friday even before the Egyptian protests intensified, and on global and regional stock markets, which tumbled.
Although not a major oil producer, Egypt controls the strategic Suez Canal, an artificial waterway that links the Mediterranean and Red Seas and is a key oil transit route for crude oil exports from several Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, Iraq and even Iran.
While Suez Canal operations have so far remained normal despite violence in the canal city of Suez, fears of a potential disruption to transit through the canal led to a 10% rise in tanker stocks on Friday.
The US Energy Information Administration estimates that in 2009, 1 million b/d of crude and refined products moved north through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean, while 800,000 b/d moved southbound into the Red Sea.
The nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956 by the late Gamal Abdel-Nasser triggered the invasion of Egypt by Israel, the UK and France in an effort to protect the vital trade link between East and West, in what became known as the Suez Crisis.
Suez Canal revenues are among the top foreign currency earners for Egypt, along with oil and gas exports, expatriate remittances and tourism, an industry that has been hit hard by the latest protests as thousands of visitors crammed Cairo airport in an effort to escape the looting and violence on the streets.
The US order for its citizens to evacuate Egypt has been followed by the evacuation of Russian and many Western oil workers from the North African country, which exports LNG to Europe and pipeline gas to Israel, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
REGIME CHANGE A MATTER OF TIME?
As Egyptian protesters continued to defy a nationwide curfew, which has been extended several times in the last week to try to deter further demonstrations, some analysts now see regime change in Egypt as a matter of "when" not "if."
Yet revolution in Egypt, a US ally and second largest recipient of US military aid after Israel, carries far wider implications not just for Washington but for Middle East peace and in particular the treaty with Israel.
The close relationship between Washington and the pro-Western Mubarak government cannot easily be set aside.
That explains why President Barack Obama chose his words carefully when he finally spoke out about the events there on Friday night shortly after Mubarak announced that he was sacking the government but indicated that he would not step down despite calls from the masses for his departure.
Obama's message to his Egyptian ally was measured but clear: Mubarak should take concrete steps to implement political and economic reform and refrain from using violence against protesters.
"I want to be very clear in calling upon the Egyptian authorities to refrain from any violence against peaceful protesters," Obama said in a statement shortly after speaking with Mubarak by telephone for 30 minutes.
"The people of Egypt have rights that are universal. That includes the right to peaceful assembly and association. The right to free speech and the ability to determine their own destiny. These are human rights."
But US insiders say Mubarak's promise, which he made wearing a somber dark suit and tie, to bring in a new government and implement reforms while clinging to power, was too little too late.
"Protests in Tunisia and Egypt prove that Arab people will no longer tolerate corruption and mismanagement," wrote Saudi political commentator Tariq al Maeena in Dubai-based Gulf News on Sunday in an opinion piece entitled "Growing Fear in the Palaces of Power."
"The message coming from some Arab leaders is often diametrically opposed to the expectations of their people. Promises of progress which have failed to improve the lot of the Arab street in most of the Arab world, whilst their leaders were swept away in a gluttonous frenzy to enrich themselves through nefarious means and at the public's expense will prove to have far less tolerance amongst the hungry and despairing citizens," he wrote.
“It isn't enough that one has no bread to eat. Nearly half of all Egyptians live under or just above the poverty line, set by the World Bank at $2 a day. But when the wife of the Tunisian president is reported to have flown the coop with gold bullion cleaned from state coffers, or the son of the Egyptian president flees with over 100 suitcases in a private jet, it clearly demonstrates where Arab leaders and their priorities actually lie."