When you're right, you're right.

I can't argue with Websters definition, but I'd submit the American Heritage definition as closer to my intended and understood usage:

" A quick and decisive seizure of governmental power by a strong military or political group. In contrast to a revolution, a coup d'état, or coup, does not involve a mass uprising. "

I'm in no position to debate whether or not the protests in Egypt constituted a "mass uprising", but the Egyptians themselves are calling it a "revolution"... so I was too.

Your point about the future of Egypt is too accurate to be ignored, but that is exactly what WILL happen to the issue by the liberal leadership in this country. For good or ill, the Mubarak regime had kept itself in power for 30 years through phony elections and paper referendums that gave the mild illusion that he was the "people's choice". The people seem to have grown tired of this, and raised their voices in a collective shout that brought down what could only have been considered one of the more stable, moderate governments in the region.

Its sort of funny... I found myself asking what prompted this sort of action on the part of the Egyptian people? Mubarak was no tyrannical madman like Stalin or Hussein was... he was even more moderate than his more famous predecessor, Sadat. His relationship with Israel was far more an effort of status quo than of dramatic new paradigm. His government's control of Egyptian economic factors was far less intrusive than that found even in Greece today, and the Egyptian economy was actually doing rather well, when compared with other regional powers (Egypt not being overly rich in oil reserves).

Look at its neighbors... Chad, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Ethiopia... and tell me any of their political or economic situations are any BETTER than Egypt was under Mubarak. I can't imagine anyone being able to do so at all. So what was the spark that lit this fire?

I think it was Iraq.

The Middle East has factions and parties that have decried the US invasion since day one, in every country and corner of the region. A million reasons have been given as to why the US should not have interfered with the Iraqi regime, or why its continued efforts are bad, bad, bad... but there is one thing that no one can deny:

For better or worse, the Government in Iraq is made up of the men and women chosen in free and open elections (now numbering 11 local, district and national) by anyone over the age of majority. That is not true anywhere else in the Middle East... anywhere else. Ever. It's not true in Turkey, or Iran, or Saudi Arabia, or Kuwait. It certainly isn't true in the Palestinian territories, and even Israel limits voting rights for the Knesset to Israeli citizens (meaning Palestinians living in the occupied territories are respresented by proxy, not by franchise). No woman has ever voted in Iraq prior to the 2005 general election... and that NEVER would have happened with Saddam in power...

Gotta run, more later.