Another surge of protesters in Cairo today - apparently spurred on by Google's man in Egypt, who was arrested early on and abused by police and now released is telling his tale - also he seems to be key man behind social media stirring pot of uprising - all young people it seems - there's a lot in the Arab world, more than there should be - unemployed, disgruntled for many reasons I assume - pretty much the backbone of the initial anti-gov't rage - the fixed election [or yet another fixed election] and Mubarak's ham-fisted attempt to install his son as successor pushed these people over the edge - add in Tunisia and the accelerant of social media - the military backing off because they also wanted to upend the Mubarak succession - and here we are - but not democracy and certainly not a telling sample of the Egyptian people - so revolution, no - not yet anyway - and if revolution does come very unlikely these disgruntled youth will be the power behind it - makes good sound bites for CNN et al, angry Arab youth declaiming vaguely about freedom etc etc - but that simply isn't the defining reality of the place - a young, educated Arab woman who writes a blog decrying the fate of females in the Muslim world - your heart goes out to her, sure, but this is a place where strong majorities support the imposition of Sharia or, not unrelated, have no problem with adulterers being stoned to death - we can't talk of democracy and personal liberty here, or at least we must be very cold and realistic when doing so - and it seems Obama has absorbed that message since his vacillating and confused approach to the crisis is now steering towards cautious and conservative - too late I think, leaders in the region have already sounded his depth and resolve and are no doubt less than impressed - certainly, it's seems unlikely the Israelis will ever trust him again in any substantial way.
The wild card remains the Muslim Brotherhood who continue to proceed tentatively - I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. Could be they reason that trying to graft their ideology onto the so far quite secular nature of the protests would raise suspicions and look too aggressive - if they're looking to be co-opted into some governing coalition reducing their threat profile would be useful. A book from the 90's by a former MB leader just translated into English may spell out a rather ambitious jihadist agenda but also states quite clearly that patience is necessary and warns against rash actions that may set the cause back - so that they're being a bit tentative here is possibly not surprising at all.
