Egypt -- The Pundit View

Nicholas Kristof:  We're All Egyptians.

The lion-hearted Egyptians I met on Tahrir Square are risking their lives to stand up for democracy and liberty, and they deserve our strongest support — and, frankly, they should inspire us as well. A quick lesson in colloquial Egyptian Arabic: Innaharda, ehna kullina Misryeen! Today, we are all Egyptians!

Amir Tahiri:  Egypt's future: Transition to what?!

The regime hopes that the talks will divide the opposition, so that the demonstrations peter out. That, in turn, could allow a "dignified departure" for Mubarak. Mubarak is a retired general, and his humiliation would mean an insult to the military as a whole.

According to Munir Ibrahim, an NDP spokesman, the talks should identify "issues and establish a road map for change" so as "to hold the next presidential elections under the best conditions."

But opposition parties want straight constitutional reform and a referendum. They demand a lifting of the ban on all parties and repeal of the rule under which candidates must be preapproved by the security services.

And they want an immediate end to the 30-year-old state of emergency, which gives the police and security services extra-judicial powers of detention.

Regime change -- or change within the regime?

In Egypt today, that is the question.

Ilan Berman:  Mubarak bets on continuity in Cairo.

After years of lackluster international support for real liberal alternatives, Egypt is saddled with a polarized political scene and a powerful, virulently anti-Western Islamist opposition. A definitive collapse of the current government might therefore usher in precisely the type of chaos and political disorder that could be exploited by radical forces.

That’s why Mr. Mubarak is betting that, as Egypt‘s disorder deepens, America and its allies will gravitate toward the political outcome that best preserves the country’s pro-Western orientation - and that option is still the existing regime, however sclerotic it may be. He may just turn out to be right.

Kirsten Powers:  The Muslim Brotherhood vs. freedom

Full disclosure time: I have dozens of family members living in Egypt -- Coptic Christians, the largest religious minority in the Middle East.

The Brotherhood's stated goal is to govern by the Koran. As for violence, well, its flag depicts a sword and the Koran.

This "moderate group" that has allegedly embraced secularism also expressly seeks to ban any Egyptian president from being female or Christian. One Brookings Institution expert -- who believes the Brotherhood should be included in a new government -- told me it would probably segregate the sexes if it ever gained control.

This is what democratic elections in Egypt could bring in the long run.

Charles Krauthammer: Toward a soft landing in Egypt.

The military is the best vehicle for guiding the country to free elections over the coming months. Whether it does so with Mubarak at the top, or with Vice President Omar Suleiman or perhaps with some technocrat who arouses no ire among the demonstrators, matters not to us. If the army calculates that sacrificing Mubarak (through exile) will satisfy the opposition and end the unrest, so be it.

The overriding objective is a period of stability during which secularists and other democratic elements of civil society can organize themselves for the coming elections and prevail. ElBaradei is a menace. Mubarak will be gone one way or the other. The key is the military. The United States should say very little in public and do everything behind the scenes to help the military midwife - and then guarantee - what is still something of a long shot: Egyptian democracy.

The Wall Street Journal: Hamas, the Brotherhood and Egypt

But the basic error wasn't about polling. It was to insist on an election before the proper groundwork had been prepared. And it was to allow an armed Hamas to participate in a political process whose very legitimacy Hamas rejects. Anti-democratic parties cannot be a part of a democratic system, a lesson the world might have learned as far back as 1933.

It's also a lesson the world should bear in mind as events unfold in Egypt. Those who believe that a democratic Egypt is doomed to fall into the Muslim Brotherhood's hands frequently cite the 2006 elections as Exhibit A. But the lesson of those elections is that Hamas should not have been allowed to participate, not that elections should never have been held.

Update:  Yesterday Nicholas Kristof who is on the ground in Cairo wrote this:

They had their heads covered in the conservative Muslim style, and they looked timid and frail as thugs surrounded them, jostled them, shouted at them.

Yet side by side with the ugliest of humanity, you find the best. The two sisters stood their ground. They explained calmly to the mob why they favored democratic reform and listened patiently to the screams of the pro-Mubarak mob. When the women refused to be cowed, the men lost interest and began to move on — and the two women continued to walk to the center of Tahrir Square.

I approached the women and told them I was awed by their courage. I jotted down their names and asked why they had risked the mob’s wrath to come to Tahrir Square. “We need democracy in Egypt,” Amal told me, looking quite composed. “We just want what you have.”

"We just want what you have," she said.  It's the same all over.

Comments

[Jane]

It's a very scary situation - but it highlights the weakness of our President when an 83 year old dying of cancer can clean his clock.

[Tom Bowler]

Scary, indeed. I suppose there might be a glimmer of hope in this parallel to the Tea Party: Everyone expected it would just go away. The Egyptian protest was expected to do the same, but it's turned into a revolution. The old rules don't seem to apply, which is good, but it's no assurance that the either the Tea Party or the Egyptian people will win out in the end.

For the Egyptians we can only hope. The Tea Party is different. We are the Tea Party. We must persist.

[jtorod]

Any parallels with South Korea in the 1980s?

[Tom Bowler]

In 1980 the South Korean military crushed a citizen uprising in Gwangju South Korea. The Egyptian army has thus far resisted any such action against the citizens of Egypt, with violence coming mostly from pro-Mubarak thugs. I like Krauthammer's assessment. The military may be the best hope for ushering democratic rule into Egypt.

The parallel I'd like to see between Egypt and 1980 South Korea is in the outcome. South Korea went from military dictatorship to functioning democracy.