for more we turn to michele dunne, senior associate at the carnegie endowment for international peace and editor of the online journal, the arab reform bulletin. she's served at the state department and on the national security council staff. and samer shehata, assistant professor of arab politics at georgetown university. welcome back to you both. professor shehata, beginning with you, this... hosni mubarak, just days before he left office, was speaking of his bond with egypt and he said "i will die on its land." what changed? >> well, what changed was millions of people demonstrating in tahrir and other squares calling for him to be held accountable as well as regime officials. we have to remember that he stepped down or was removed on february 11 and was a free man until about april 15 or so and what about in the interim were demonstrations, particularly a major million-person demonstration on april 8 calling for him to be put on trial and calling for other regime officials who were free to be held accountable. >> warner: but he could have fled, could he not? >> he could have fled.

joining us from washington, michele dunne of the carnegi endowment for middle east peace.obert danin of the council on foreign relations. he used to run the jerusalem office of the middle east quartet. and rami khouri. his column published twice weekly by "the star." give me ur sense of where we are. >> i think we're at a very critical juncture in the middle east. we had uprisings and regime change in tunnisia and egypt, early this year. we have now seen real conflict and violence in countries like libya, syria, yemen and then we had the death -- killing of bin laden and what the president wants to do -- although perhaps i'm getting ahead of ourselves -- what the president wants to do is signal we're turning over a page and entering a new chter in the history of the region and in the history of the interaction between the united states and the middle east. >> charlie: my question was more posed to a quote of yours that i read which is the following. "i have never been more concerned about where this is headed than now. there seems to be increased momentum tards what could