You Think Democracy is on the March in Egypt?

Think again!

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal published an excellent symposium using the writings of four truly experienced middle east observers and participants. Please read to gain an understanding of what is happening not only in Egypt; but the ripple effect in the region.




Liberals Had Better Get Organized
By Francis Fukuyama

Recent events first in Tunisia and now in Egypt demonstrate that there is no Arab cultural exception to the broad desire for freedom around the world.

The act of self-immolation that set off these dramatic events was that of a Tunisian vegetable seller who had his cart repeatedly confiscated by the government and then was slapped and insulted by a policewoman when he went to complain. People want political rights because they want their governments to treat them with dignity, a wish that obviously reverberates throughout the Arab world.

The revolt does not seem to be driven by the poor, the marginalized or the religious, but by the middle-class—technologically savvy Tunisians and Egyptians who don't have opportunities for meaningful work or political participation. They want to join the rest of the world and not cut themselves off from it.

But why is the Arab world coming so late to a democracy party that Latin Americans, Eastern Europeans, Asians and Africans first started attending 20 years ago? Part of the answer is the deliberate strategy that authoritarian leaders like Hosni Mubarak have pursued—of gutting liberal opposition and permitting the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood to operate just enough to scare the United States and other Western backers.

This strategy worked on a series of American administrations that paid lip service to the need for democracy but were never willing to push their ally, for fear of empowering the Islamist opposition. Those chickens are now coming home to roost.

If Mr. Mubarak indeed leaves office and there is a clean break with his regime—meaning that longtime aides like Omar Suleiman, now the vice president, leave power too—then Egyptians' central task will be the unglamorous one of institution-building.

Democracy does not magically spring to life once the dictator is gone, or even after the first free and fair election has taken place. The color revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgystan, as well as the U.S. interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, invariably disappointed their hopeful early backers by not producing effective democratic governance.

Facebook and Twitter are great at mobilizing flash mobs to bring down tyrants, but they are less useful in building political parties, forming coalitions, negotiating political programs or making officials honest.

At present, the best-organized forces in Egypt are the military and the Muslim Brotherhood. Egyptians who want a free and democratic future had better get busy organizing themselves if those groups are not to inherit the future.

Mr. Fukuyama, a senior fellow at Stanford, is author of "The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution" (forthcoming from Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

The Army Will Play a Crucial Role
By Ryan Crocker

However events play out on the streets of Cairo and Alexandria, there is no question that the Mubarak era is over. Egypt faces as fundamental a shift today as it did in 1952.

The Obama administration has rightly emphasized two words: "orderly transition." There must be transition—the old order cannot hold. But it must be orderly.

The crowds in Egypt's streets do not constitute a party or a coalition. There is no clear agenda beyond Mubarak's ouster and no established leader. Mohamed ElBaradei is far more respected and known outside of Egypt than he is within. For all of his distinction, he is no Vaclav Havel.

The Egyptian army will play a critical role, now and as a new political order emerges. U.S. defense leaders are in direct contact with Egyptian counterparts. The army has shown remarkable restraint, but each day that passes without the initiation of a viable political process increases the risk of violence that could destroy any prospects for a successful political strategy.

What might that strategy look like?

Mr. Mubarak has announced that he will not be a candidate in the September elections. He should now offer credible assurances that these elections will be fair, monitored by an independent election commission and international observers.

Second, he should initiate a broad political and economic reform dialogue involving all of Egypt's major political figures—including Mr. ElBaradei, the dissident Ayman Nour, the leaders of parties including the Muslim Brotherhood, and emerging figures in civil society. The results of that dialogue, which are likely to include constitutional changes, could be submitted to a public referendum or to a newly elected parliament.

Hopefully such steps would mean an end to the street demonstrations. Not only do those demonstrations contain the seeds of unchecked violence, but they are devastating to an already weak economy. Tourism will take months if not years to recover, and investor confidence is badly shaken if not shattered.

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AFP/Getty Images
Demonstrators in Cairo Feb. 1.

This will require hard choices by all parties, especially Mr. Mubarak. If his immediate departure is a sine qua non to end the street protests, he should be prepared to hand power to his new vice president and prime minister during the transition period, with the knowledge that this would represent the best chance to maintain what he has worked for these past 31 years—a stable Egypt.

Our adversaries, Iran and al Qaeda, will certainly attempt to take advantage of any prolonged disorder in Egypt. We should remember that al Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is an Egyptian who left the country during the government's successful repression of Egyptian Islamic Jihad in the 1990s.

As was clear then, Islamic Jihad and the Muslim Brotherhood are enemies, not partners. The Brotherhood can be accommodated in the political system. But al Qaeda and Islamic Jihad would like nothing better than to regain a foothold in Egypt, the largest Arab country, and destroy that system. That must not happen.

Mr. Crocker, the dean of Texas A&M's George Bush School of Government and Public Service, was U.S. ambassador to Pakistan from 2004 to 2007 and U.S. ambassador to Iraq from 2007 to 2009.

The Muslim Brotherhood Lacks a Khomeini Figure
By Maajid Nawaz

Having spent four years in an Egyptian prison for Islamist activism—where I shared a cell with some of the leaders of the current uprising—I view these events as far more than just an academic or policy interest. I abandoned Islamism years ago, but for me this is personal.

First, let's clarify the nature of this uprising: It is a spontaneous people's revolt. It was not planned by any political party or orchestrated by any ideologically aligned movement. Rather, it was instigated by the tired, angry urban young, and fast grew to become an all-Egyptian affair. The best revolutions are made of the very ingredients that cooked up this Egyptian storm: spontaneity, inclusiveness and persistence.

Egypt's old guard has long presented the world with a potent choice: Accept our police state or extremists will take over. Rooted in the old politics of colonialism, this dichotomy effectively deterred democracy in the Arab world. What the ongoing uprising shows is that this dichotomy is no longer valid. Real change is now possible, and the old analysis that it can come only through empowering Islamists has been shattered.

The new Egypt—led by but not restricted to the youth—has little time for the octogenarians of old, who include not only Hosni Mubarak but also Mohamed Badie, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and my former cellmate. Within the Brotherhood, Mr. Badie has recently been challenged by a reformist faction now led by the younger Abdul Monim Aboul Fatouh (another former cellmate of mine).

The leaderless nature of Egypt's street uprising raises the question of who will fill the vacuum after victory. Concerns about an Islamist takeover are valid. But that scenario is unlikely.

The Brotherhood realizes that this uprising wasn't theirs to begin with, and that the new Egypt—more patriotic, pluralistic and inclusive—would likely reject a Brotherhood attempt at usurpation. Unlike Amr Moussa (the head of the Arab League), Mohamed ElBaradei (the former international bureaucrat), and Ayman Nour (the liberal party leader and another former cellmate of mine), no one in the Brotherhood possesses the stature to unite the nation behind them. There is no Khomeini-like Islamist figure to hijack this revolution.

In a post-Mubarak Egypt, the Brotherhood would likely increase its presence in parliament, but no Brotherhood figure is likely to win the presidency or a key cabinet post. As the Brotherhood becomes an increasingly legitimate force, though, policy makers in Egypt and beyond should pressure it to abandon its remaining extremist positions, such as its insistence that only a Muslim male may lead the nation.

Mr. Nawaz is co-founder of the counterextremism think tank Quilliam and founder of the Khudi movement, which works to promote a democratic culture in Pakistan.

Egypt Doesn't Have a Democratic Culture
By Amr Bargisi

As of this writing, the contest between President Hosni Mubarak and hundreds of thousands of protesters remains a standoff. No one can predict what Egypt will look like in a few days—let alone the next few months and years. But from my vantage point in Cairo, I believe that the result will be one of two evils.

First, the 1789 case—a win for the revolutionaries, as the massive anger that sparked the uprising is channeled into a Jacobin regime that hunts down its enemies mercilessly. It is a grave mistake to assume that the rage of the masses will be placated by the ousting of the tyrant.

Last night, one demonstrator told two friends of mine in downtown Cairo's Tahrir Square that the next step will be to knock on the doors of suburban villas and ask the owners: Where did you get the money to afford these?

The second possibility is a reactionary scenario. If the ruling elite wins—meaning Mr. Mubarak's cronies, if not Mr. Mubarak himself—the country will be ruled by a contract between the state and the frightened middle classes to make sure no similar uprising ever happens again. This is an angle that has been totally missing from Western media coverage, as far as I can tell without Internet access.

There is another force in the streets of Cairo besides the demonstrators. Equal, if not in numbers then certainly in influence, are the thousands of young men standing all night in front of their houses and stores to protect them from looting.

Perhaps they share the anger of their peers in Tahrir Square, but their fear is much stronger than their rage. On Friday night, after the police disappeared, these young men got a taste of what could come: Hundreds of thugs roamed the streets, looting and burning. Then there are the inmates, reportedly several thousand, who have fled prison and are apparently still on the loose.

I believe the reactionary scenario is more likely. But regardless of my own opinion, what is clear is that Egypt lacks the sort of political culture that can sustain a liberal democratic regime. The superficiality of the opposition's demands is matched only by the absurdity of the regime's discourse. Without knowledge of the likes of Locke and Burke, Hamilton and Jefferson, my country is doomed to either unbridled radicalism or continued repression.

Mr. Bargisi, a former Bartley fellow at the Journal, is a senior partner with the Egyptian Union of Liberal Youth. Due to lack of Internet service, he dictated his comments by phone.