Siona Jenkins
in Cairo
When President Bush announced last March that a post-Saddam Iraq would herald a new era of democracy in the Middle East and "show the power of freedom to transform that vital region", most Arabs were, and still are, sceptical.
Yet few would deny that political change is desperately needed throughout the region. How it should come about was the subject of debate this week in Egypt, the Arab world's most populous country.
With an aging leadership clinging to power, and a young, burgeoning population that is growing increasingly restive as poverty levels rise and government policies stagnate, Egypt is clearly in need of change.
"The country will collapse if there is not dramatic change within the next three years," said Mr Hisham Kassem, publisher of the respected Cairo Times newspaper and head of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights.
Even Egypt's leaders acknowledge something should be done.
At the recent annual convention of the ruling National Democratic Party, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced a number of changes, including equal citizenship rights for women and the abolition of decrees issued by military governors.
Yet the President's commitment to change is questionable. He has been in power since his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, was gunned down by Islamist militants in 1981 and, at 75, shows little sign of retiring.
In his 22 years in office, the former air force pilot has warded off all threats to his leadership while tightening the state's hold on power through his chairmanship of the NDP, a quiescent monolith that dominates the parliament and is largely seen merely to rubber-stamp legislation.
Emergency laws have been in place since he took power, and with them police powers have grown, civil society has been squeezed and human rights severely eroded.
Critics say that given such a context, the reforms announced by Mr Mubarak at this conference amount to little. His abolition of orders by military governors, for instance, came with the large and vague exception of orders necessary to "preserve public order and security".
"There is no substance to the changes," said Mr Kassem. "The NDP is a facade and is not really involved in decision-making. Most major decisions are made within the presidency."
One change that has been noted, however, is the increasingly high-profile role of the President's son. Over the past three years Mr Mubarak has been gradually placing his son Gamal in the public eye, prompting speculation that he is grooming him for succession, as Syria's Hafez al-Assad did with his son Bashar, and Saddam Hussein clearly intended to do with Qusay.
Both Mubaraks and their supporters deny this.
"He is not thinking about becoming president," insisted Dr Muhammed Kamal, a Cairo University political science professor who is close to the younger Mubarak. "As far as the succession goes, Egypt has a president . . . and we will cross the bridge when we come to it."
Nonetheless, it is clear the President is giving his son a boost in his nascent political career. A 40-year-old former banker who lived in London for several years, the articulate younger Mubarak is widely seen as a progressive force trying to change the entrenched core of the party leadership.
A year ago he was made head of a new NDP policy secretariat, a centre of reform where, for the first time in the party's 20-plus years in power, policy was discussed and formulated.
He is also credited with attracting to the party a new generation of Western-educated businessmen and academics.
"I believe we need economic, social and political reform," explained Dr Kamal, one of those who joined the party in the hope of instituting change.
"It is not an easy process, and will take time, but this message has attracted new people to the party and that is as important as the policies themselves. Without Gamal Mubarak, none of this would have happened."
But while the younger Mubarak may have converted many of Egypt's best and brightest to the NDP cause, questions remain about how far the party can reform itself from within. Opposition politicians and human rights groups say that true reform cannot take place until emergency laws limiting freedom of speech and assembly are repealed, and parties can be formed freely. Neither issue was fully addressed at the conference.
Cynics say there will be no real changes until President Mubarak's successor is in office.
"The next president of Egypt will come from the army," said Mr Kassem. "Whoever he is, he will have to make a lot of compromises, politically and economically."