So it’s doomed to fail.

(CNN) — When thousands of angry protesters take to the streets of Egypt on Friday, one man many see as the country’s next potential leader will be among them.

The Cairo-born former head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei on Thursday returned to the country, despite death threats, to be with “his people.” “There was an edict against me a couple of weeks ago basically saying that my life should be dispensable because I am defying the rulers,” ElBaradei told CNN on Tuesday.

ElBaradei has yet to form a political party but hundreds of thousands of Egyptians have set up Facebook groups supporting his candidacy. One “Elbaradei for Presidency of Egypt_ 2011” counts more than 200,000 members.

…After three terms as the IAEA’s director general, ElBaradei stepped down at the end of 2009. He was hoping to settle into a quiet retirement, but his return to Egypt during the week’s unrest suggests that he is not content to sit and watch from the sidelines.

He said the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia that saw the expulsion of long-term President Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali in mid-January had spurred action in Egypt.

“It sent a message everywhere to the Arab world that, to quote Barack Obama, ‘Yes, we can,’ you know, that it is doable.”