A few people have asked me via e-mail how the situation in Egypt looks from over here in the UAE.

I can’t speak for a country or even a city, but I am certain of this generality:

Everyone is watching.

Events in Egypt have fascinated and gripped this part of the Arab world since they began, back on January 24. That was the day I arrived in Qatar to cover the Asian Cup.

Within a few days, most televisions in the Main Media Center were tuned to the Arabic-language version of Al Jazeera, and it wasn’t just journalists who were watching. It was volunteers. It was guys working in security. It was everyone in the room.

Last Saturday, after the big demonstration from the day before, I was going through the mag-and-bag area of the MMC when security handlers picked up the copy of the Doha newspaper I was carrying that had on its cover a huge photo of a military vehicle burning. One was holding it and looking; another was peering over his shoulder. I said, “Keep it, if you like.” “No sir, here it is.” “No, really, I can get another one.” And they kept it.

From the start, an undertow of this story has been official fear of a “domino effect” — that other autocratic governments in the region could fall if Hosni Mubarak is forced out. That whatever happens in Egypt, moreso than in Tunisia, would set the stage for a whole region of the world. Egypt being the biggest in population and the most influential, in culture.

The story has led my newspaper for more than week, as our two reporters and a photographer file from the scene. We in the UAE are in the region, and the government here considers Egyptians “brother Arabs,” but Egypt isn’t exactly next door. It’s almost 1,500 miles from Cairo to Abu Dhabi.

As for my entirely personal opinions … I think almost everyone who grew up in societies where real elections are held … instinctively sides with the revolutionaries against authoritarian regimes. And it’s not just the whiff of rebellion or the excitement of something new. Americans, I believe, quickly hearken back to their own history, and the Declaration of Independence and their break from what they considered to be tyranny. Britons think of the Magna Carta and the French remember their own bloody revolution and liberte, equalite, fraternite, and most of the First World just snicks into place behind the idea of “representative democracy.”

A week ago, I thought this would have what I would consider a happy ending.  The military was out but it was not firing on demonstrators. The police seemingly had been driven from the street. The demonstrators seemed to have carried the day. Mubarak would flee, and some chaos might follow, but a more represent government would follow.

But then … in a moment that revolutionaries everywhere will study in future years … the movement seemed to lose momentum. They had seized Tahrir Square, they couldn’t be dislodged … but now what?

In the newsroom, someone put together a “revolution pool.” For five dirhams (about $1.35), you could buy a three-hour block of time when you thought Hosni Mubarak would leave the country or be forced from power. I took one of the few slots left from the four days into the future — 6-9 a.m., February 3.

Which has, of course, come and gone, and Mubarak is still there.

That same day, when people were signing up for the pool, one of the journalists in the room, an Arab who has grown up in the region, expressed no interest and added, “Mubarak is not going anywhere.”

That gave me pause. So, too, did the events of, Tuesday night, when the whole demonstration seemed to grow a bit limp. I remember saying, “The critical moment is past; Mubarak will survive.”

I’ve been watching revolutions for much of my life. Especially since Iran in 1979 and Tiananmen Square in 1988. And, of course, the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991. I remember how thrilling Tiananmen was, in particular, because the power of the Chinese Communist party had seemed so absolute, but there were tens of thousands of students in the square, defying authority. I recall being in tears when I learned of (and saw) the Goddess of Democracy, a statue of foam and papier-mache constructed on the square by protesters and clearly based on the Statue of Liberty.

Of course, that all ended badly, when the military crushed the protesters, killing hundreds, perhaps thousands of them. (As my own small homage, for years I had in my office a picture poster of the unidentified Chinese man who stood in front of a row of tanks, defying them to crush him. The man has disappeared and is widely presumed to be dead.)

In Iran, the revolutionaries also won, but that hasn’t turned out well.

The revolutions of 1991 were more successful. Wildly successful. The whole of the Soviet Union’s satellite states broke away. Most of them peaceably, or nearly so.

The trajectory of those revolutions were largely the same. Students in the street. Joined by their elders. Overpowering the police by sheer numbers. The breakdown of the government. Usually a call to the army, which perhaps for a day fired on the demonstrators. But what we have long since realized is that conscript armies will not shoot on their fellow citizens for more than a day or two. After that, the regime is in trouble. The revolutionaries taking power.

Where Egypt went wrong, I fear, were in there two areas:

1. The protesters never had a clear goal. Aside from turning out tens of thousands of people, and making clear their dissatisfaction with the government, what plan did they have? Would they attack the police? The army? Would they force the army to choose sides? Who were their leaders? Did they have a Havel or a Yeltsin or a Khomeini around whom to rally? (Mohamed ElBaradei seemed keen not to be that leader.) Egypt seemed lacking here. No clear leader. No clear plan. No confrontation of the authorities in a violent way.

2. Some intelligent and effective push-back by the regime, after the opening few days of paralysis. The attempts, which seem to be gaining much traction now, to demonize journalists (especially Al Jazeera, which is a government-owned network based in Qatar) and to paint the uprising as having foreign elements in it who are messing up the lives of regular Egyptians.

Factor in 10-plus days of economic paralysis, with no one working, no one making any money, people presumably running short of basics, and Egypt (from 1,500 miles distant) seems tired. Exhausted. Spent.

Mubarak also did a smart thing when he promised to step down and not run in the next elections, which may take place in September, in the meantime serving as a caretaker for a transition to some new system/leader. Some demonstrators seemed to think that was victory enough, and went home.

Then came the bloody clashes of Wednesday and Thursday, tame by Iranian or Chinese comparison, but unsettling, apparently, to Egyptians. Who seem now to Just Want This Over With.

Right this minute, I’m looking at CNN’s pictures of Tahrir Square, where thousands of people have gathered but are doing … nothing. The military apparently is monitoring the number of people who get to the square, and what they carry with them, which seems to indicate that the army finally has come down on the side of the regime. And as nothing happens, it seems as if the last of the air in this revolutionary balloon is leaking away.

Which means this is over. A week ago, when the army didn’t move, I thought Mubarak was doomed. Instead, by staying out of this almost entirely, the army left mostly unarmed demonstrators powerless to actually change the government.

This was supposed to be The Day of Departure. Instead, it looks like the Day the Movement Died.

Reviled autocrats around the world no doubt are taking notes. Keep the army sidelined. Paint the demonstrators as foreign. Shut off/break down social networks. Harass foreign media. Wait out the demonstrators. They will run out of energy before you run out of bullets or tear gas.

All we can hope is that the movement spurs Egypt to enact reforms. Seems at least as likely, however, that the government will spend much of its energy identifying and punishing all the leaders of the protest who it can find. And when they are all in jail, those left behind probably will be far less likely to stream into the streets to challenge a government that holds all the weapons.