Egypt and Arab States circle toilet bowl

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by glatt

That's pretty much the opposite of what I heard on NPR this morning. NPR said the military issued a statement that they support the time line proposed by Mubarek to step down in the Fall.

I heard that as well. I think the military will back Mubarek, but if the people riot and get violent then we will see if the military use their might to control the demonstrators. If they do not, then they may be put in a situation where they have to force Mubarek out sooner than he wants. The last thing we need is a vacuum and an opportunity for extremists to take over.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

The last thing we need is a vacuum and an opportunity for extremists to take over.

You could also say the last thing we need is to stretch out the elections, which would give the extremists time to hijack the process and take over.

We simply don't know what the best course of action is, and we don't have much influence to control it anyway.

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by glatt

That's pretty much the opposite of what I heard on NPR this morning. NPR said the military issued a statement that they support the time line proposed by Mubarek to step down in the Fall.

That's what I meant. A temporary control of the country, not a military coup.

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

The last thing we need is a vacuum and an opportunity for extremists to take over.

The more I read the more I'm leaning that the Muslim Brotherhood will not have a strong influence in the near future. If I remember correctly, I believe they stated that they will not put out a candidate for a presidential bid and there has been a lot of statements (propaganda?) from the Brotherhood that they have the best interests of the Egyptian people in mind and they are non-violent, which seems actually mostly true. There is a reason Al-Qaeda and Iran do not respect them.

I'm guessing that since Mubarek is gone the next ruler might lift the ban against the Muslim Brotherhood. So now they are trying to put up a good front so they can start getting some support from the Egyptian people. Once they get support, then they can start trying to make a large impact on Egyptian politics in a democratic way. If this is true, the worse thing that can happen is a bad secular government gets put into place that fails in five years and everyone starts supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.

Also, if the Muslim Brotherhood takes over, they know they will just become the next Iran. They will lose a lot of trade and aid from Western countries which will probably not help their unemployment problem. I don't think they would last long under those conditions and I'm guessing they know that.