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All that is being accomplished by the calls for Mubarak to democratize and resign is to show how irrelevant America is and how worthless it is as an ally

Muslim Brotherhood as the only force capable of replacing Mubarak


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By —— Bio and Archives January 28, 2011

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After Tunisia, the disturbances have moved on to Egypt, Yemen and Jordan. Despite what is being predicted, I wouldn't count on any of these countries undergoing the same kind of turnover.
Mubarak is a canny old goat and his secret police forces are extensive and effective. And given a choice between complying with Obama's demands and giving in, on cracking down, he will crack down. All that is being accomplished by the calls for Mubarak to democratize and resign is to show how irrelevant America is and how worthless it is as an ally. Probably the dumbest piece so far comes from Jackson Diehl at the Washington Post
the Obama administration's embrace of Mubarak, even as the octogenarian strongman refused to allow the emergence of a moderate, middle-class-based, pro-democracy opposition, has helped bring the United States' most important Arab ally to the brink of revolution. Mass popular demonstrations have rocked the country since Tuesday; Friday, when millions of Egyptians will assemble in mosques, could be fateful.
Key word here, mosques. Read Muslim Brotherhood. Mubarak will not be replaced by Diehl's imaginary moderate middle class democracy opposition. It will be a tyranny of one kind or another. And the odds are still on the Muslim Brotherhood as the only force capable of replacing Mubarak.
Second, the Obama administration's Middle East experts concluded that there was no chance of serious reform - much less revolution - under Mubarak. So they plotted at playing a "long game" of slowly nurturing grass-roots movements and promoting civil society, in preparation for the day when Egypt might be ready for real reform. In this they badly underestimated the secular opposition that was rapidly growing in the blogosphere and that months ago began rallying behind former U.N. nuclear director Mohamed ElBaradei.
This is so much crap that it could be shoveled to make strawberries. Only a Beltway journalist would take the Egyptian blogsphere seriously as an opposition force. The Egyptian blogsphere consists of mostly middle and upper class privileged Egyptian kiddies. They will be absolutely irrelevant once the shooting starts and they have no role whatsoever in determining who takes over the country. Mohamed El Baradei's "popularity" is an even bigger myth. El Baradei is mostly popular with Western journalists. No one in Egypt gives two shakes of a donkey's tail about him.
Those demands are coherent and eminently reasonable: Mubarak should step down and be replaced by a transitional government, headed by ElBaradei and including representatives of all pro-democracy forces.
How is this reasonable? ElBaradei hasn't won an actual election. Why should it be assumed that he should take power? Because he's a favorite of the WaPo columnists? Get real.
That government could then spend six months to a year rewriting the constitution, allowing political parties to freely organize and preparing for genuinely democratic elections. Given time to establish themselves, secular forces backed by Egypt's growing middle class are likely to rise to the top in those elections - not the Islamists that Mubarak portrays as the only alternative.
And then happy bunnies will fly out of their ears and sing magical songs about something or other. Really? Open elections. That are going to be won by the secular middle-class? What secular middle-class? Most of Egypt is poor. The vast majority of it is religious and fanatical. If this had happened in the 1950s, it still probably wouldn't have worked, but there might have been a shot. But now. A secular middle-class government in Egypt? I don't have the proper words to express how insane and delusional this is. The only secular governments in the Muslim world are run by dictators. And that is how it is going to stay. A democratic election will be won by the Muslim Brotherhood. No ifs ands or buts. They may temporarily enlist secular allies, but they will ultimately rule alone. They are happy to use ElBaradei as a front, but the end result will be an Islamist regime. Either Jackson Diehl should learn something about Egypt beyond browsing the so-called Egyptian blogsphere, or be replaced by a talking banana. It's not too late to take the right side. A footnote, consider the pundits who have urged us to embrace Castro's reforms, but would like us to see remove Mubarak. There is little difference between the men in principle. Mubarak is certainly less of a tyrant than Castro. But Cuba is the left's pet cause. And they fantasize that Egypt will see a left wing government take hold once Mubarak is gone. Fantasies are those are. Iran should have taught them better.



Daniel Greenfield -- Bio and Archives | Comments

Daniel Greenfield is a New York City writer and columnist. He is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and his articles appears at its Front Page Magazine site.


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