Egypt: you knew it was going to come down to this

A Muslim Brotherhood candidate versus a holdover from the old regime.

This is the essential question for the Egyptian public: stick with what they know or let the Islamists try to do better with the economy.

In the end, you want them to choose the Islamists, because the same old, same old won't work any better than the Mubarek version did. The trick is, the military needs to let this experiment run itself out.

Yes, there are many in the West that see a Muslim Brotherhood taking over the Middle East.  This sort of overwrought hysteria is not useful.  We've seen several would-be national liberation movements link up regionally over time, but as any of them get actual opportunities to rule, expect them to be total nationalists who completely backburner any alleged transnational solidarity.

This is not a new dynamic (nor a new misdiagnosis by the strategic community in the West): we've seen it throughout history.

But, in the end, letting the Islamists try-and-either-fail-or-succeed is essential to the Arab Spring process, and since that dynamic is overwhelmingly characterized by the empowerment of Sunni masses, that means the MB now face their moment in the sun.

Again, the Brotherhood can either meet this overwhelmingly economic challenge and succeed (the Erdogan dynamic in Turkey) or they can go all social conservative and self-destruct just like the GOP here in the fiscally f--ked-up States.

Comments

[Louis Heberlein]

"But, in the end, letting the Islamists try-and-either-fail-or-succeed is essential to the Arab Spring process, and since that dynamic is overwhelmingly characterized by the empowerment of Sunni masses, that means the MB now face their moment in the sun."

Many years later some big name writer will say "everybody knew this."

[Ralf Ostner]

It seems to me that the US policy has decided to let the Arab spring blosssom and the Muslim Brotherhoods seize power in the Sunnite states. An experiment that can cost us a lot. The Muslim Brotherhood already declared during Turkish premer Erdogan´s vist to Egypt that it doesn´t want to take the path of Turkey.Morsi is also not Foutuh. What is the benefit if Saudia Arabia and Katar are supporting the Salafists, the US takes this escalation as legitmation for bombing Syria (Chief of the Joint Staff General Ramsey is already thinking loud about a military intervention of the USA in Syria after the Hula massacre) and as result of all this the Muslim Brotherhood will also seize power in Syria.It seems to me that Thomas Barnett as Obama try to hope for a "Katharisis" in the Muslim world. You can´t hold the old regimes in power anymore, so let´s try something new--but the "something" are the Muslim Brotherhoods.

[itsarife]

"self-destruct just like the GOP here in he fiscally f--ked-up States."
Yeah, like California, right?

Check out the sites below. Many more "Blue States ", Professor, are in bad fiscal shape.

As Forbes writes, it's the Bluest States that are spilling the most Red Ink.

Also, according to Yahoo Finance, most of the best run states are "Red"

http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/25/democratic-states-bad-financial-shape-personal-finance-blue.html

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/best-and-worst-run-states-in-america.html?page=all

http://charlestonteaparty.org/financial-crisis-2011-the-ten-worst-states/

[Thomas P.M. Barnett]

Of course the red states are best run: on average they all suck in more DC dollars than they pay to the Federal Government. It's the blue states that pay more taxes than they take in.