A large demonstration is planned for tomorrow, Friday, in front of the U.S. embassy in Cairo but, as you can see on Al Jazeera’s live streaming video, protesters are gathered today, too. The police have established their position at some distance from the crowd, as well as the embassy, and are fitfully tossing rocks and firing tear-gas canisters to keep that broad passage between themselves and the crowd clear. In effect, these are the only defenses the police have against a mob that might otherwise tear them to pieces, because they’re not going to fire their weapons, not today to protect themselves and almost certainly not tomorrow either if they have to protect Americans.

An Egyptian president from the Muslim Brotherhood is not going to give the order to shoot at demonstrators in front of the American embassy who are supporting what has been ardently marketed as a Muslim cause—protests against a film insulting the prophet of Islam. Without Mohamed Morsi providing the police with cover, the police know they’re vulnerable, not only to the mob but a court system that has prosecuted and jailed policemen for their actions during the uprising that brought down Hosni Mubarak. The protesters know all this, especially the history of the revolution and the various battles pitting the cops against the revolutionaries, because most of the demonstrators that were gathered today in front of the embassy are those same revolutionaries.