if there is one thing i know for sure about politics in egypt, it’s that if we ever ran the famous poll seemingly run every week in america questioning whether “the country was heading in the right direction?“, the answer would be a resounding NO.
to help me make sense of local politics, i am looking forward to reading john bradley‘s inside egypt: the land of the pharaohs on the brink of a revolution
It has been 27 years since Hosni Mubarak took the reins of power in Egypt, following the 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat. President Mubarak’s legacy has been one of political repression, economic stagnation and seething resentment on the part of the Egyptian people — an anger that now seems ready to explode.
bradley claims that the brotherhood’s popularity is far less popular than usually assumed and goes on to recommend that obama
take full advantage of the Mubarak regime’s current vulnerability to push for the opening up of Egypt’s political process and clear the way for the country to address the underlying causes of instability. But Washington must act quickly, before it becomes too late to do anything but watch from the sidelines as Cairo burns.