Egypt: The People Victorious

From earlier today, the headline on Al Jazeera's Arabic broadcast reads, "Egypt: The People Have Won" and below, "Live: Celebrations unite the Arab world from the Atlantic to the Gulf at the fall of the Mubarak regime."

This morning I heard an NPR story on the Egyptian protests' reverberations in Iraq, in which a group of Iraqi activists expressed perfectly what so many ordinary citizens across the Arab world have felt for years: "We are like camels. We carry the gold, but we only get to eat the grass."

Today the people of Egypt have finally thrown off their load, refusing to be beasts of burden any longer. The joy of the crowds in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez, and elsewhere is infectious. In just 18 days, they have managed to wrench their nation—and perhaps the Arab world at large—onto a new historical course.

Tomorrow the real work will begin, and Egyptians will have to grapple with the power vacuum left in the revolution's wake. But tonight is a time for jubilation.