Having asserted his authority at home by sending the army back to its barracks last month, Egyptian President Muhammad Mursi is now staking out an independent and more forceful Egyptian diplomatic presence regionally and internationally. As Mr Mursi's spokesman Yasir Ali put it on 26 August, "Egyptian diplomacy will be more active, more vibrant. We have gone through a very long period of diplomatic stagnation, torpidity and rigidity. We're not counted in any axis or any old groupings. Therefore our minds are open for everyone, and our hands are extended to everyone." The next day, Mr Mursi himself confirmed that "Egypt is now a civilian state…a national, democratic, constitutional, modern state. International relations between all states are open and the basis for all relations is balance. We are not against anyone but we are for achieving our interests." And he made it clear for the first time that among those interests is a change of regime in Damascus, since "now is the time to stop this bloodshed and for the Syrian people to regain their full rights and for this regime that kills it people to disappear from the scene."