Anybody fancy a holiday in Sharm?

You may not think that question would have many takers, but in fact nearly 50,000 Brits are in Egypt right now, most of them in the Red Sea resorts of Sharm Al Sheik and Hergada. Despite the obvious dangers of being in, well, almost anywhere in the Middle East just at the moment, people are still attracted by the cheap prices and guaranteed sunshine. So far, they have been lucky. But how long will their luck hold out?

It doesn't take some sort of political genius to work out that this perennially troubled region is in deeper shit than at any time since 1967. In Egypt, supporters of Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood (what is about that name that immediately strikes fear into the average westerner's heart?) sought to bring him back from the political dead by mounting a second Arab Spring- "Arab Spring 2: this time it's really going to make a difference" and began to set up a protest camp in Cairo. But the military government weren't about to see everything (in their eyes) fall apart again and moved into the camps with an iron fist. You may have seen pictures of the camp after the army had roiled in like the Red Army going through Poland. Everywhere there were piles of shoes lying around, testament to the speed with which the inhabitants fled their tents in panic. Perhaps hundreds were killed. Perhaps that explains why they recently released Moubarak on bail. Remember, he was accused of killing dozens of protesters during the first Arab Spring, and I suppose it would look a bit hypocritical to keep him in jail after the army-led government had just done exactly the same thing.

500 miles to the north, evidence is emerging of the use of poison gas against civilians in the outskirts of Damascus. As so often happens in these situations, both sides are blaming each other for the atrocity, but at least both sides admit that something terrible did happen. What will Obama do? He called the use of neurotoxic agents a "red line" for him, though just what he meant by that is hard to say. Now that the red line has been crossed, will he mount an Iraq-style invasion and set everything to rights as his predecessor did so beautifully just a few years ago? Get real, man. There is no way the Americans are going to embroil themselves in a situation that is far more complex and dangerous than they faced in Iraq, for fear of lighting a fuse under the whole Mid-East region. They'll huff and they'll puff, but they ain't gonna do jack. Assad will go down fighting, but not against foreign troops. And there will be a lot more blood on the streets before that happens.