Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, 85, has been held since shortly after he was removed from power in 2011. He was convicted last year on charges of inciting violence against protesters during the popular uprising the led to his ouster and, eventually, the elections that brought Mohammed Morsy to power. He was sentenced to life in prison but appealed, and a retrial was granted early this year. 
Then-Vice President Mubarak, left, joins President Anwar Sadat at a military parade on October 6, 1981, the day Islamic fundamentalists from within the army assassinated Sadat. Mubarak succeeded Sadat as Egypt's president, maintaining power for nearly three decades. 
Eight days after Sadat's assassination, Mubarak is officially sworn in as Egypt's president on October 14, 1981. Mubarak was re-elected in 1987, 1993, 1999 and 2005. 
Mubarak poses with U.S. President Ronald Reagan at the White House in 1982. 
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher meets with Mubarak in London in 1985. 
Diana, Princess of Wales, visits Mubarak in 1992 during a trip to Egypt. 
Mubarak and U.S. President Bill Clinton hold a joint press conference in 1995. 
The front page of the Ethiopian Herald reports a foiled assassination attempt on Egypt's president on June 27, 1995. Mubarak survived an attempt by an al Qaeda-affiliated group in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 
Mubarak, third from left, joins President Bill Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, second from left, Jordan's King Hussein, third from right, and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, second from right, in Washington in 1995. The Israeli leader and Arafat signed maps representing the redeployment of Israeli troops in the West Bank. 
Mubarak welcomes Pope John Paul II to Egypt for a three-day visit in 2000. 
U.S. President George W. Bush greets Mubarak at the White House in 2002 to talk about the Middle East crisis and the war in Afghanistan. 
In 2005, Mubarak again runs for a six-year term in the country's first multiparty presidential election. He was declared the official winner with about 88% of the vote, but many considered the election to be a sham. 
After weeks of Egyptians protesting Mubarak's 29-year reign, the president steps down from office on February 11, 2011, causing celebrations in Cairo's Tahrir Square. 
The ousted leader lies in a medical bed inside a cage in a courtroom during his verdict hearing in Cairo on June 2, 2012. A judge sentenced Mubarak to life in prison for his role in ordering the killing of protesters in the 2011 uprisings. 
Mubarak and his sons Gamal, left, and Alaa are seen behind the defendants' cage during their retrial at the Police Academy in Cairo on June 8. Mubarak was granted a retrial in January. On August 21, a court ordered Mubarak be freed, pending his retrial. 
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- A court in Egypt ordered the release of former president Hosni Mubarak from jail
- Frida Ghitis: Could it really be -- might Egypt end up exactly where it began?
- She says there's a realization that legitimate rule requires consent of the people
- Ghitis: Egypt and the Middle East are not the same as when Mubarak was toppled
Editor's note: Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist for The Miami Herald and World Politics Review. A former CNN producer and correspondent, she is the author of "The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live Television." Follow her on Twitter: @FridaGColumns.
(CNN) -- Could it really be: Might Egypt end up exactly where it began?
The decision by an Egyptian court to release former President Hosni Mubarak from prison adds to the impression that Egypt has come full circle, returning precisely to where it stood before the people toppled Mubarak, bringing an end to his 30-year-long dictatorship.
It might seem that way, but that is the wrong conclusion. Egypt is a very different place from what it was before Mubarak fell. And after 2½ years of tumultuous upheaval, so, too, is the rest of the Middle East.
To say the revolution has not gone as planned is to state the obvious. Mubarak's freedom is an important and rather disheartening symbol of the reverses faced by those who wanted to see dictatorship replaced by democracy.
Since the last day Mubarak was president, Egypt has experienced the toppling of two regimes, a failed attempt at democracy, and an enormous amount of bloodshed. In the process, the country has learned many lessons. The innocence of 2011 is gone.
There is a new maturity, a new realism. There's no sign of Jeffersonian democracy anywhere in the Arab Middle East, but there is a new notion that those who govern require the consent of the people before they can enjoy legitimacy in their position.
A regime may be able to stay in power without that seal of popular acceptability, but it will be tagged as a dictatorship; it will remain unstable and hated. Its survival will constitute an affront to the dignity of the nation. No government wants to be seen that way. No citizen wants to be ruled that way.
The Middle East may not look like what most people wanted it to, but it has been transformed.
Muslim Brotherhood arrest 
Mubarak supporters call for his return 
The Egyptians that want to be heard That's why before the Egyptian military moved in to remove Mohamed Morsy from the presidency, it made sure it had strong popular support. More people signed a petition calling for Morsy to step down than voted for him in the presidential election.
Egypt is now governed by a prime minister handpicked by military chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, but el-Sisi relies on public approval in a way Mubarak never did. The situation, to be sure, lends itself to dangerous populist manipulation and nobody would ever confuse the current structure with a democracy, but it includes important elements that could eventually produce a more democratic future.
Even now, with the military in control, the notion that the people support the army is el-Sisi's greatest argument in defense of his position.
The people have been empowered in a way they never were before. The mindset of those who lived under decades of dictatorship has been changed.
Much else has changed. Since the intoxicating optimism of Tahrir Square, people have learned that revolutions are hard to control. The disastrous experiment under the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government, the economic free fall and the violence Egyptians have endured have offered a stark lesson to Egypt and its neighbors.
Those who would like to see more inclusive regimes, more democratic elements of government in other Middle Eastern countries, have watched Egypt. They have also watched the catastrophe that is befalling Syria. The revolutionary drive will now be tempered with cooler calculation. Reform won't come after a few weeks on the square chanting slogans for freedom.
Perhaps reformers in Egypt would become more circumspect. True reform will require systematic, gradual plodding. Democracy requires more than elections. Democratic institutions and a democratic mindset must be developed before it can succeed. A foundation of consensus is needed.
Another enormous change since the Mubarak days is the transformation of how people in the Middle East perceive key players in the region.
The Muslim Brotherhood, for example, has not only lost power -- it also has seen its reputation deeply eroded. It has shown itself as incompetent and untrustworthy in the eyes of many. The Brotherhood's Morsy, elected with only 24% of eligible voters, behaved as if he had an overwhelming mandate. He tried to propel the Muslim Brotherhood's agenda, pushing a constitution written by his Brotherhood allies, appointing Brotherhood members to key positions, allowing an atmosphere of intimidation and persecution against non-Muslims, and trying to put himself above the law.
As a result, his initially strong approval ratings fell steadily until millions took to the streets demanding his resignation. Before he was overthrown, 70% of Egyptians told pollsters they worried the Muslim Brotherhood was trying to "Islamicize" the country against their will.
The Muslim Brotherhood has now been tested. It failed.
That Egyptian experiment will reverberate in a time of turbulence. It's not only the Muslim Brotherhood whose image has changed.
Syria's Bashar al-Assad was once viewed as a moderate, even a reformer. With more than 100,000 dead in that country's civil war, he is now viewed as a ruthless dictator, even if the popular uprising against him now includes many Islamist fighters, whose ideology is rejected by supporters of democratic change.
The Arab uprisings, even with Mubarak a free man again, have weakened other organizations. Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite group, has tarnished its name by joining the fight on Assad's side. Hamas, the Palestinian version of the Muslim Brotherhood, still has control of the Gaza strip, but it no longer enjoys the support of the bulk of the Egyptian public.
It may look as if Mubarak is re-entering the same stage he left; as if nothing had changed. But the former Egyptian president is walking onto a changed world. The last two years have rerouted the course of history.
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Frida Ghitis.
