#Egypt has been in a tailspin as violent protests fanned across the country.

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Mubarak was able to predict Egypt's descent into chaos-because he planned it: http://slate.me/U9cK7T 

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How Mubarak Planned for Egypt To Fail Without Him

By Will Dobson @WilliamJDobson

For a week, Egypt has been in a tailspin as violent protests fanned across the country. Nearly 60 people died in these confrontations, as the ranks of those who oppose Islamist president Mohammed...

Slate @Slate · Follow

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak

Photo by Khaled Desouki/AFP/Getty Images

For a week, Egypt has been in a tailspin as violent protests fanned across the country. Nearly 60 people died in these confrontations, as the ranks of those who oppose Islamist president Mohammed Morsi squared off against his supporters and police. The violence in three cities near the Suez Canal—provoked by a court ruling handed down on Saturday—reduced 

neighborhoods and streets to lawlessness. At times, Morsi’s government has appeared incapable of restoring order, with its imposition of curfews and promises of harsh penalties roundly ignored. The chaos even swept into the heart of Cairo, when the famed Semiramis Intercontinental Hotel, just off of Tahrir Square, was stormed by thugsarmed with knives, pellet guns, and a semi-automatic weapon. It took more than an hour for police to respond to the hotel’s pleas. By Tuesday, the country’s top general warned that the state was in danger of collapse. On Friday, more than 6,000 Egyptians protested at Morsi’s presidential palace, banging on the gates, throwing stones, and chanting, “Leave, Leave!”

Of course, one man predicted Egypt’s descent into near anarchy long ago: Hosni Mubarak. I imagine him sneering from the confines of the military hospital he now calls home, telling his attendants and his handful of visitors, “Isn’t this what I said? I told them this would happen. I told them …”

Mubarak’s prediction of the chaos to come wasn’t simply some astute piece of political analysis—it was a promise. Mubarak was the primary author of the stunted and underdeveloped politics that Egyptians inherited two years ago, when they overthrew Mubarak’s regime. In his three decades in power, political institutions shrank more than they grew. He (and Anwar Sadat before him) refused to let genuine political parties spring up. Civil society and independent NGOs were caged birds whose wings were easily clipped. The only organization that flourished under his watch (besides the Egyptian military) was the Muslim Brotherhood—because the threat of Islamists running Egypt was a necessary ingredient of his combustible formula for making himself indispensable.