EGYPT HASN'T REALLY CHANGED YET

DINOCRAT:

The military has run Egypt for over half a century (Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak). It still does.

What, after all, has changed, except there was a big, wild party telling the old guy to leave town, and a bigger, wilder one when he left?

If the city folk don’t like the new guy, or the next new guy, or the one after that, what then? Saying no is trivial.

In a country like Egypt, there’s no hard-won democratic tradition to say yes to, and ample reason to believe that democracy would be highly problematic, as Andrew McCarthy has discussed.

Egypt is a country where over 40% of the people are illiterate and a majority lives on less than $5 a day. It is a country where barbaric mutilations are commonplace and its greatest art has been condemned by the highest religious authorities. It is a land of crazy superstitions. It is a country where “84 percent say that apostates, or those who forsake Islam, should face the death penalty.”

The media’s coverage of Egypt reveals yet once again how little anyone should pay attention to the media’s framing of an issue like this.

IF THE ARMY STANDS ASIDE THEN SURELY THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD WILL STEP FORWARD AND USE JIHAD TO GAIN CONTROL.

IF THE ARMY DOESN'T STAND ASIDE, THEN NOTHING AS REALLY CHANGED.

THE ONLY REAL CHANGE CAN OCCUR WHEN ISLAM CHANGES - AND THAT'S NOT LIKELY -

ISLAM IS WHAT MOHAMED SAID IT WAS,

AND REAL MUSLIMS LIVE THE WAY MOHAMED LIVED AND THAT'S MORE LIKE OSAMA AND ZAWAHIRI AND THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD THAN LIKE MUBARAK OR KING ABDULLAH 2 OR... IRSHAD MANJI.

IOW: EGYPT MUST NOT ONLY CHOOSE BETWEEN TYRANNY AND DEMOCRACY, BUT BETWEEN ISLAM AND APOSTASY IN THE EYES OF ISLAM.

IF THEY CHOOSE REAL DEMOCRACY AND PLURALISM THEN THEY ARE CHOOSING APOSTASY FROM ISLAM.

JIHADISTS WHO ARE WAGING WAR FROM THE PHILIPPINES THROUGH THAILAND AND AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN AND IRAN AND IRAQ AND JORDAN AND EGYPT AND TURKEY AND CHECHNYA AND ALGERIA AND MOROCCO WILL NOT SIT BY IDLY AND WATCH AS EGYPT CHOOSES DEMOCRACY AND APOSTASY.

THEREFORE; WE ARE LIKELY GOING TO SEE THE BATTLEFIELD OF WW4 EXPAND.

AND AS WE ARE PINNED DOWN IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN AND THE HORN OF AFRICA, THIS IS NOT LIKELY GOING TO GO WELL FOR US - UNLESS WE ACCEPT THAT WE HAVE TO CRANK UP OUR USE OF FORCE AND FIGHT TOTAL WAR WHILE WE STILL HAVE AN ADVANTAGE.

IOW: WE HAVE UNTIL IRAN GETS NUCLEAR BOMBS TO WIN WW4.

THEN ALL BETS ARE OFF.

UPDATE: LEGAL INSURRECTION:

If the transition in Egypt is not handled well, and if the more secular forces do not have time to organize and consolidate power in the coming years, the result will be an Islamist state.

Whether the Islamists in Egypt follow the Iranian or Turkish model really doesn't matter. The end result will be the same.

Hopefully there will be a new model, the Egyptian model, with a very different result.