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Toward a Soft Landing in Egypt

(Washington Post) Charles Krauthammer - Who doesn't love a democratic revolution? Who is not moved by the renunciation of fear and the reclamation of dignity in the streets of Cairo? The Egyptian awakening carries promise and hope and of course merits our support. But only a child can believe that a democratic outcome is inevitable. We are told by sage Western analysts not to worry about the Muslim Brotherhood because it probably commands only about 30% of the vote. In a country where the secular democratic opposition is weak and fractured after decades of persecution, any Islamist party commanding a third of the vote rules the country. The primary U.S. objective is to guide a transition period that gives secular democrats a chance. Mohamed ElBaradei, who has lived abroad for decades, has allied himself with the Muslim Brotherhood. A man with no constituency allied with a highly organized and powerful political party is nothing but a mouthpiece and a figurehead, whom the Brotherhood will dispense with when it ceases to have need of a cosmopolitan frontman.
2011-02-04 08:49:44
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