Mubarek's "mandate" is really just a breathing space; watch the economy instead

■"Mubarek Wins Easily, But Vote Fails to Engage Egypt," by Daniel Williams, Washington Post, 10 September 2005, p. A18.

Mubarek wins almost 90 percent of the vote, but that equates to a whopping 20% of the potential electorate, meaning 80 percent of the adult public chose not to bother vindicating his rule.

"After 50 years without democracy, a three-week campaign is not enough to persuade Egyptians to come out and vote, much less come out and vote for a change from a known face," said Maye Kassem, a political science professor at the American University in Cairo.

Some vote of confidence.

Mubarek is kidding himself if he thinks this buys him much time. What have we seen in recent months in Egypt?

The result ends a tumultuous phase in Egypt's politics, one characterized by maneuvering and unprecedented outspokenness. For a year, in the face of repeated crackdowns, opposition activists organized demonstrations to demand Mubarak's ouster. Judges futilely resisted the government's determination to handpick observers at the polling stations. Workers began to strike for better pay and safety on the job. Human rights groups pressed loudly for release of political prisoners. The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic-based grass-roots organization that is banned from politics, joined in calling for democratization.

The Bush White House chooses to see this glass as half full, and given the recent systematic push toward economic reform by the Prime Minister, triggering new levels of financial connectivity with the Core's major markets, I think this approach is defensible given everything else going on in the region. We make the Big Bang work best in Egypt by continuing to engender a sense of inevitability for economic reform. But to keep that rolling we need to stop Iraq from roiling.

And for that we need Iran.