The Redhunter

First, the establishment and army stick together, get rid of Mubarak, but preserve the regime. The changes put in charge a former Air Force commander (the same job Mubarak once held) and the intelligence chief. The elite stays united, toughs it out, does a skillful combination of coopting and repressing the demonstrations, and offering some populist reforms. The old regime continues. In that case, it is only a minor adjustment.

Second, the elite loses its nerve and fragments, in part demoralized by a lack of Western -- especially U.S. -- support. The Muslim Brotherhood throws its full weight behind the rebellion. Soldiers refuse to fire at or join the opposition. Eventually, a radical regime emerges, with the Muslim Brotherhood as either ruler or power behind the throne. Remember that the "moderate democratic" leaders have been largely radical and willing to work with the Brotherhood. In that case, it is a fundamental transformation.

The new regime turns against the West, tears up the peace treaty with Israel (in practice if not formally), and joins hands with Hamas. Iranian influence isn't important with this regime, but that will be small comfort as it launches its own subversive efforts and even goes to war against Israel at some point in the future. This will be the biggest disaster for the region and the West since the Iranian revolution 30 years ago. And in some ways it will be worse.

Third and least likely, neither side backs down bringing bloody civil war.

Absolutely critical here is the Muslim Brotherhood's decision. Should it be cautious or decide that the moment for revolution has arrived? The choice is not clear because if it picks wrong it could be destroyed. Have no doubt, though, that the Brotherhood is the only non-government group with disciplined followers, real organization, and mass support. In an election where it was harassed, repressed, and cheated -- thus undercounting its support -- the Brotherhood officially received 20 percent of the vote.

Did you get that last sentence? That the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the three branches of the jihad and the organization that created Hamas, got 20 percent of the vote the last time in Egypt and that was almost certainly an undercount?

So why the pessimism? In a word, experience. Rubin again:

1. Iranian revolution, 1978-1979: Mass protests by a wide coalition against dictatorship. Result? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is now president.

2. Beirut Spring: Christians, Sunni Muslims, and Druze unite against Syrian control. Moderate government gains power. Result? Hezbollah is now running Lebanon.

3. Palestinians have free elections: Voters protest against corrupt regime. Result? Hamas is now running the Gaza Strip.

4. Algeria holds free elections: Voters back moderate Islamist group. Result? Military coup; Islamists turn (or reveal their true thinking) radical; tens of thousands of people killed.

I could also mention Muslim Turkey, which has gone Islamist recently, almost completely abrogating the promise of Kemalism.

We've also seen where sudden revolutions take us in the West as well; the French Revolution which started off well enough in 1789, but descended into a Reign of Terror after the Jacobins seized control, and then into the military dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte.

The protests in Iran in Dec 2009 - Jan 2010 were by a people already under an Islamist regime, and the goals of the demonstrators seemed to be to want to push things in a better direction. To be sure, even if they had somehow succeeded in overthrowing the government there's no guarantee they would have gotten what they wanted, but it was at least worth a try.

More, from what I know the Iranian people are generally much better educated and sophisticated than the Egyptians.

More

But what do Egyptians really think? According to a recent Pew poll, they are extremely radical even in comparison to Jordan or Lebanon. When asked whether they preferred "Islamists" or "modernizers," the score was 59% to 27% in favor of the Islamists. In addition, 20 percent said they liked al-Qaeda; 30 percent, Hezbollah; 49 percent, Hamas. And this was at a time that their government daily propagandized against these groups.

How about religious views? Egyptian Muslims said the following: 82 percent want adulterers punished with stoning; 77 percent want robbers to be whipped and have their hands amputated; 84 percent favor the death penalty for any Muslim who changes his religion.

In a democracy, of course, these views are going to be expressed by how people vote. Even if Egypt does not have an Islamist government, it might well end up with a radical regime that caters to these attitudes and incites violence abroad.

How unhappy.

What To Do

All this said, we can't support Mubarak. We may as well take our chances with elections and hope for the best. As such, the suggestions made by the bipartisan Working Group on Egypt are as good as any:

Statement of the Working Group on Egypt, Saturday January 29, 2011

Amidst the turmoil in Egypt, it is important for the U.S. to remain focused on the interests of the Egyptian people as well as the legitimacy and stability of the Egyptian government.

Only free and fair elections provide the prospect for a peaceful transfer of power to a government recognized as legitimate by the Egyptian people. We urge the Obama administration to pursue these fundamental objectives in the coming days and press the Egyptian government to:

-- call for free and fair elections for president and for parliament to be held as soon as possible.

-- amend the Egyptian Constitution to allow opposition candidates to register to run for the presidency.

-- immediately lift the state of emergency, release political prisoners, and allow for freedom of media and assembly

-- allow domestic election monitors to operate throughout the country, without fear of arrest or violence.

-- immediately invite international monitors to enter the country and monitor the process leading to elections, reporting on the government's compliance with these measures to the international community.

-- publicly declare that Mr. Mubarak will agree not to run for re-election.

We further recommend that the Obama administration suspend all economic and military assistance to Egypt until the government accepts and implements these measures.

Evolution, Not Revolution?

One answer is slow evolution towards liberty and plurality over time. The authoritarian governments on Taiwan and in South Korea morphed into democracies. Francos' fascist Spain is a democracy today. It can happen.

Samuel Huntington explained how this worked in his 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations:

During the 1970′s and 1980′s over thirty countries shifted from authoritarian to democratic political systems....Democratization was most successful in countries where Christian and Western influences were strong....These transitions and the collapse of the Soviet Union generated in the West, particularly in the United States, the belief that a global democratic revolution was underway and that in short order Western concepts of human rights and Western forms of political democracy would prevail throughout the world. Promoting this spread of democracy hence became a high priority goal for Westerners....The greatest resistance to Western democratization efforts, however, came from Islam and Asia. This resistance was rooted in the broader movements of cultural assertiveness embodied in the Islamic Resurgence and the Asian affirmation. (p 193)

In the post-Cold War world the choice can be the more difficult one between the friendly tyrant and an unfriendly democracy. The West's easy assumption that democratically elected governments will be cooperative and pro-Western need not hold true in non-Western societies where electoral competition can bring anti-Western nationalists and fundamentalists to power....As Western leaders realize that democratic processes in non-Western societies often produce governments unfriendly to the West, they both attempt to influence those elections and lose their enthusiasm for promoting democracy in those societies. (p 198)

So even a slow, evolutionary change, is harder to pull off in some countries than others. History seems to show that the more a country has been influenced by the West, the greater it's chances of success. The more Islamic, the worse it's chances.

What about Iraq, then? The jury is still out so we can't really say. It's headed in the right direction, but now that we are withdrawing we'll see if the situation holds.

In Conclusion

Instant revolutions rarely produce good outcomes. Ours was more a colonial revolt than a true government; we didn't go to London and depose the king.

Could I be wrong? You betcha. It's possible that the Brotherhood doesn't gain a foothold in a new government, and that instead of morphing into an Islamist regime it moves toward real liberty. Moderate voices could prevail. I'm just not holding my breath.