In the end, if Obama truly wants to install Suleiman, he probably can. He’ll engineer one of those “make me do it” moments, where he just has to accept that the thing his administration has been working tirelessly to achieve is the best thing for Egypt. But the minute that happens, and the stories start leaking out about young demonstrators being “disappeared” by Suleiman’s thugs, he’ll have to explain to the social media generation how it was all worth it for “stability in the region.”

And this time, he won’t be able to blame it on the need for “60 votes.”