EGYPT, TURKEY, ISLAMISM, THE MILITARY, SECULARISM AND DEMOCRACY

Some folks think Egypt might become as democratic as Turkey - if they're lucky, and as (un)democratic as Iran if they're not.

I think the difference between Turkey and Iran is minor - and increasingly so, and that Egypt will not be modern or democratic until it is no longer majority Islamic.

This is true for all Islamic nations: not one is a well-functioning modern democracy with pluralism, and secularism.

Turkey had managed to be secular ONLY because of Kemalism and because the military had - until recent AKP purges - always been willing to step in and stage a coup or virtual coup to protect Kemalism. Erdogan's AKP changed Turkey, slowly but surely turning it into an Islamist nation. At first the secularist masses rebelled against the AKP, but lately they seem to have submitted. Now Turkey is firmly in the Iranian camp, the once secular military seems permanently weakened, and the AKP government directly aids the Muslim brotherhood of Gaza, AKA Hamas. Turkey is now for all intent and purposes an Islamist and should be thrown out of NATO.

If Egypt becomes another Turkey, then the West loses and global jihad and Iran win.

I hope the Egyptian military does a better job of maintaining its secularist role than turkey's military did.

I suspect that in a few years people who like secular democracies and pluralism and freedom shall look back at Egypt under Mubarak as nostalgically as many do Iran under the Shah.

I hope I am wrong.

Should a pluralist Egyptian democracy emerge, I predict it will take a civil war like Iraq's to protect it from the inevitable islamo-terrorist attacks that are probably only a few weeks from beginning.

Stay tuned...

NOTE: The folks who succeeded Musharraf have now indicted him for the murder of Bhutto - even though it was the Taliban and al Qaeda who did it. WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT? I think the weak and corrupt administration now in power wanted to appease al Qaeda and the Taliban and the elements of the ISI that Musharraf fought.

NO SURPRISE HERE EITHER: Like most islamic nations, Pakistan had long been run by military juntas alternating with corrupt pseudo-democracies with one regime punishing the last. This is just another chapter in a long and sordid history replete with such chapters.

One can hardly escape the conclusion that at its core Mohamed's religion is indeed incompatible with democracy and pluralism.