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The real crime of Hosni Mubarak is that he ruled for 30 years and left behind an Egypt where the Muslim Brotherhood is the single strongest player.

In primary school in south-eastern Nigeria, I was taught that Hosni Mubarak was the president of Egypt. I learned the same thing in secondary school. In university, Mubarak was still president of Egypt. I came to assume, subconsciously, that he - and others like Paul Biya in Cameroon and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya - would never leave.

Egypt, once a melting pot of peoples, classes, cultures and religions, has, after 30 years of Mubarak's rule, become a place of intolerance and distrust of the other.

There's no doubt about it that Mubarak has been indeed a partner with Israel, but there's also no doubt about something else. Conditions in Egypt were getting worse and worse, and it was almost just a matter of time before the popular uprising started.

Egypt under Hosni Mubarak had deteriorated to the status of a failed state. We must wipe the slate clean and start again.

The raids on Freedom House, the National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute, the Adenauer Foundation, and other groups helping Egyptians move toward respect for democratic politics and human rights were of a piece with the practices of Hosni Mubarak - only bolder and more repressive.

There's a lot of hypocrisy and condescension in Israel's institutionalized support for Mubarak's tyrannical rule, in its backing of a corrupt leader who established a brutal secret police state to suppress his citizens and keep their mouths shut.

There's been an Israeli position, which is 'We love Mubarak,' that permeates their whole society, the political class. That certainly differs from many of us in the pro-Israel camp in the United States.

Mubarak came to power as a hero who fought bravely in Egypt's wars and headed the nation's air force.