IN THE WAKE of two terrorist attacks in Sinai this week, first against the tourist sector in Dahab, then against the Multi-National Peacekeeping Force, some observers have related Mubarak’s situation to that of President Anwar al-Sadat in 1981. It’s a useful comparison because, like Sadat at the time, Mubarak seems hapless at present. Before Sadat’s assassination in October of 1981, he arrested scores of critics, intellectuals, and journalists (such as former Nasser confidante and current al Jazeera retread Mohammed Hassanein Heikal) none of whom actually wanted to kill him, as the Islamists eventually did. Thus, because he went after marginal figures rather than the most serious threat to his rule, those arrests indicated Sadat’s weakness not his strength.

Similarly, every time Mubarak’s security services arrests a Bedouin, the regime is telling us it is weak because it is not catching the real culprits. When they arrested over 2,000 Bedouin after the first Sinai attack in Taba in October 2004, they announced that they were floundering, and that if the regime wants to preserve its existence, Mubarak’s son Gamal or military intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, or more likely both, should take the helm ASAP. The old man can’t cut it any more.