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We are back with former ambassadors john wisner and john negroponte. you get the feeling that the administration was caught by surprise when hundreds of thousands of people showed up in that square in cairo. why didn't we catch it? >> well, i mean, i think it's cliche, but hindsight is 20/20 vision and any surprise you look at from pearl harbor to 9/11, when you reconstruct events, things look a lot more obvious and a lot more invefitiable, at the time they are happening what you get are signals, no question about it, but they are lost in a lot of noise and sometimes picking the right signals ...

And if i may just take a minute, i think the opposition groups in egypt are very interesting. they are not monolithic. they had some tactical differences in them. some personalities involved. they are also trying to figure out how to operate together. there is a desire i believe on behalf of some within the government to split the opposition, so that you have a variety of voices coming out of egypt. the united states i think cannot micromanage the process. what we have to do, however, is make clear that the process itself is important and arriving at a democratic solution is important which is...

Support constitutional reform. he's a man who has led his country for 30 years, and he's done a great many things, terrific things for the country and for us. we don't want to just see him discredited and all of his pasta publi accomplishments thrown down the drain. he needs to go out with honor. if we can help him with that, that's what we should be doing. >> in this goes back to what ambassador wisner says. a very distinguished diplomat. he knows the arab world and the middle east extremely well. he was trying to create a little bit of space for mr. mubarak so that he can reflect on his lega...

president mubarak is my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful, must be peaceful and it must begin now. >> for a while, it sounded like they wanted mubarak to go, until yesterday when secretary clinton seemed to suggest there is a way around mubarak. >> i think it's important to support the transition process announced by the egyptian government. actually headed by now vice president omar suleiman. >> what does the u.s. want? today, standoff in egypt. we begin with former secretary of state madeleine albright. then two diplomats who know the region and the players. form...

Process, it has to be democratic and inclusive, and i think that we're very clear that there has to be a transition process that represents the will of the egyptian people. >> which they have been saying, and i understand that, and then they have to be diplomatic, from the very beginning, it was like we can't insult mubarak. he's been an ally, albeit a flawed one. he might have survived. we didn't know what would happen in the beginning. now it's pretty clear. it's not going to run again at the very least. it's going to be gone when and if there is an election. but the question here is the sig...