The situation in Egypt is “fluid,” to say the least. Weary of corruption and abuses under longtime President Hosni Mubarak – who now says he will not seek re-election – huge numbers of Egyptians have taken to the streets in protests that have overwhelmed police forces. The military, meanwhile, has fortunately not moved in with crushing force.
Many Egyptians have protested peacefully, though some have engaged in violence and looting.
So where is all this heading? Anybody can make guesses about the end result, and those guesses may or may not prove accurate. But some of the signs are not encouraging.
For one, the radical Muslim Brotherhood is taking great interest in the goings-on in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood is closely linked to the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas, which regularly fires rockets at civilian targets in Israel. A cell of the Muslim Brotherhood assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981, and the organization seeks Islamic rule in Egypt.
The Brotherhood is now allying itself with one of the leaders of the protests, Mohamed ElBaradei, an Egyptian and the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. He has seriously downplayed the threat of Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons, which does not bode well for the possibility that he might rise to power in Egypt.
The Obama administration has improperly suggested it would reach out to the Muslim Brotherhood if it has assurances that the group is not violent. Unfortunately, the Brotherhood’s past shows that it is violent, so any such outreach is unwise.
On a positive note, groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood are not the only ones protesting in Egypt. Coptic Christians and some less-radical Muslims are also in the mix, calling for political and religious liberty and for democratic reform.
It remains to be seen which of those factions will win out, or whether the existing regime will manage to cling to power for a time. We hope and pray that peace and liberty will defeat radicalism, violence and corruption.