Ugh. El-Baradei would be terrible. He was basically an enabler for Iran's nuclear program as head of the IAEA and has absolutely zero political base in Egypt. He's been compared to Alexander Kerensky in that he'll be a doormat for a group like the Muslim Brotherhood, the historical equivalent of the Bolsheviks in this scenario.Fingers are crossed that elections happen and El Baradei ends up in the top spot... but being realistic there's always the possibility of the army giving them that "fuck you" moment and turning it into a military run nation.
Only time will tell, though.
Schoen excerpt said:While very recent public opinion polling from Egypt is not currently available, a number of clear inferences about what is likely to happen can be drawn from prior surveys and prior election results.
The bottom line: there is at least a 50 percent chance, if not more, that a candidate from the Muslim Brotherhood or a party with a generally similar approach and orientation will win the next presidential election.
I draw this conclusion from a number of factors. First, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that support for the current regime is very limited to nonexistent. But the underlying structural issues present a more daunting challenge. Even before the fall of the Mubarak government, the Egyptian public was strongly aligned with fundamentalists and traditionalists, rather than modernizers who support a secular, pro-western tradition.
Put simply, Egyptians support Islam, its expanded role in the country's civic life, as well as Shariah.
A broad based analysis of Egyptian public opinion by Lisa Blaydes and Drew Linzerhow bears this conclusion out. They concluded that 60 percent of Egyptians have fundamentalist views, while just 20 percent are secular in their orientation.
Egyptians also support a more expansive role for Islam in Egyptian life. In Pew polling conducted last year, almost half (48 percent) say that Islam plays a large role in politics in Egypt, and an overwhelming majority – 85 percent – say Islam’s influence in politics is positive. Only 2 percent say its influence is negative. Not surprisingly, almost two-thirds of Egyptians told Zogby that Egyptian life would improve when clerics play a more central role in the political life of the country.
"Islamist harboring nation" being a nation like Iran, Somalia, Yemen, or Saudi Arabia who, enemy and ally alike, allow Wahabbist radical teachings to permeate and grow under their watch. Basically a place where Islamist philosophy (Shorthand: All governments should eventually be an Islamic caliphate as demanded by Allah, and all who oppose Allah and his warriors shall be killed) is either actively encouraged or given only token resistance.What do you mean by "Islamist harboring nation"? To me that kind of came off as you hoping the country disallows islam.
Agreed, exactly what Deck knight just said. We don't need a Goverment based on Islamic theocracy, we don't need religon to be next to the government in Egypt which is exactly what the Muslim Brotherhood trying to pull. Just hoping overall Egypt will be sort of a Government similar to Turkey which religion for the most part has nothing to do with the government, which is exactly what we need in the middle-east to move it around other countries."Islamist harboring nation" being a nation like Iran, Somalia, Yemen, or Saudi Arabia who, enemy and ally alike, allow Wahabbist radical teachings to permeate and grow under their watch. Basically a place where Islamist philosophy (Shorthand: All governments should eventually be an Islamic caliphate as demanded by Allah, and all who oppose Allah and his warriors shall be killed) is either actively encouraged or given only token resistance.
Or even more condensed, what a non-secular Egypt would look like given its history and placement in the Middle East.
I use Islamist rather than Muslim since I separate Islamism (which is a philosophy of government that demands a worldwide Islamic theocracy governed by shariah law) and Islam (which is a religion whose adherents are, at least in theory, ammenable to religious pluralism within their nation but personally guided by Islamic moral principles.)
Unless you can get Muslims to address the Islamists that justify their violence with their religion you will never get anywhere, since Islamists immunize themselves from outside criticism. Unless they are ostracized from within the religion they purport to represent, they will continue to grow or at least remain at a stable number as they radicalize new members.
Man, my only real source on this so far has been NPR and BBC for the past few weeks, but at least according to them, the Muslim Brotherhood (a fairly Islamist political party, hereto banned in Egypt) doesn't sound like it really had that much to do with this revolution, nor does it sound like they have any real chance at "taking over Egypt). According to them, Egypt is more of a secular society than many of it's surrounding countries. It sounds to me that the military taking complete control of the country, blaming the previous chaos, is more of a threat.Or even more condensed, what a non-secular Egypt would look like given its history and placement in the Middle East.
The problem you run into is that they might have a free and fair election - Once.Man, my only real source on this so far has been NPR and BBC for the past few weeks, but at least according to them, the Muslim Brotherhood (a fairly Islamist political party, hereto banned in Egypt) doesn't sound like it really had that much to do with this revolution, nor does it sound like they have any real chance at "taking over Egypt). According to them, Egypt is more of a secular society than many of it's surrounding countries. It sounds to me that the military taking complete control of the country, blaming the previous chaos, is more of a threat.
The analysis I heard from commentators on Fox was that the young people were more westernized, with jeans, tatoos, etc. That may be true, and the Middle East as a population is a lot younger than European and US counterparts, but there remains a large number of older fundamentalist hardliners in a society that still teaches respect for elders and, if Doug Schoen is to be believed, would support more clerical involvement in the government process. The new openness to democratic elections may be used by the Muslim Brotherhood to circumvent their banning alluded to by mattj, and from there the Muslim Brotherhood candidate will hit all the right notes on the wonders of Islam, the glories of Allah, the support for more clerical involvement in the government process, etc. Even if they fail to capture the presidency, their candidates will still capture a significant portion of the parliament. Given Sadat was assasinated by the Muslim Brotherhood, the idea a president opposed to them would be able to keep them in check is not a wise bet.The military is trained in America, and are actually quite western. They really were the peace-keepers for much of these proceedings, and the idea that there is going to be military rule for an extended period of time seems extremely far-fetched to me.
Muslim Brotherhood most likely won't take power; the military seems to be fully behind having a full and fair election, and the Muslim Brotherhood, while having decent support in Egypt, most likely does not have enough people who would vote for them for them to establish some sort of Islamic rule, not to mention that Egypt as a society is actually quite secular in comparison to most of the "Islamic world"
No. This is the Iranian Revolution that put Ayatollah Khomeni into power, a ruthless theocrat who still runs Iran, with Mahmoud Achmadinijad as his frontman in the Iranian Presidency.