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Tuesday night that he would not stand for re-election but wouldn't leave office either, determined to stay in power until elections in September. Mubarak declined to rule out his son as a candidate.

Later, President Barack Obama talked by phone to Mubarak for 30 minutes and said in brief remarks at the White House that the Egyptian leader "recognizes that the status quo is not sustainable and that a change must take place."

But, Obama emphasized, he indicated directly to Mubarak that it "is my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful and it must begin now." That appeared to imply that the president was not particularly enthusiastic about Mubarak's decision to wait until September.

Mubarak made his half-way concession as hundreds of thousands of Egyptians gathered in a major square in Cairo to demand an end to his 30-year rule.

Egypt, the world's largest Arab nation, is critically important to U.S. foreign policy and to major goals the Obama administration is pursuing in the Middle East: the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, containment of Iran's influence and nuclear ambitions, counter-terrorism.

The worst case envisions a rise in extremist Muslim factions in Egypt, Tunisia and even Jordan. The Suez Canal and an adjacent pipeline could be closed, the Egyptian-Israeli peace accord renounced, the U.S.-Egyptian diplomatic and military relationship ended.

Iran could move in to fill the vacuum. That could trigger war between Israel and Iran, perhaps involving nuclear weapons. American influence throughout the region would be greatly diminished.

Mubarak's course of saying he won't seek re-election but won't step down immediately or rule out his son as a candidate "guarantees that the demonstrations will continue," said Danielle Pletka, vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based think tank. "Their demand is that Mubarak go now, not that Mubarak go in seven months." However, she said, if Mubarak had made the offer earlier that would have defused the crisis.

In his remarks, Obama emphasized that "it is not the role of any other country to determine Egypt's leaders."

Shibley Telhami, a Mideast scholar at the University of Maryland, said it was important for Obama to "lower our tone" and not appear to get directly involved in the leadership change – for fear of creating an unwelcome backlash. "The less we make this about America, the better," Telhami said.