A house divided
Barry Rubin argues that divisions among Egypt's liberal parties will result in the Muslim Brotherhood controlling the country after its upcoming elections. I never thought the Brotherhood will get a majority. My concern is that it will control around 40 percent of the seats, be the largest single bloc, and get most of what it wants in a new constitution. The president will most likely be Amr Moussa, a radical nationalist who opposes Islamism but will probably buy off the Brotherhood, Salafists, and radical left with a militant foreign policy.Read the whole thing.
(Fun Fact: In my parallel analysis of the Palestinian elections, I predicted the same thing about Hamas, that it would be the largest party and most powerful single bloc. In fact, it won. Perhaps I’m being too cautious over the Brotherhood’s prospects in Egypt, too.)
In such a situation, the idea that the Egyptian government would be friendly to the United States is laughable. At most it would do the bare minimum to keep U.S. aid. The Obama Administration is likely to be easy to please so it can claim a diplomatic success with Egypt.
Of course, I will have plenty of time to revise my analysis as the campaign develops. But the key factor that would soundly defeat the Brotherhood—unity and good organization on the liberal side—just isn’t there. As usual, note that literally none of the points suggested above has appeared in a mass media determined to prove that there’s nothing to worry about.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Amr Moussa, Egyptian democracy, Egyptian regime change, Muslim Brotherhood
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:21 AM
1 Comments:
The Muslim Brotherhood could well win an outright majority or up to two thirds of the seats in the new Egyptian Parliament. If anything, the polls tend to understate the real extent of its popularity in Egypt.
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