4 July 2013, 1207 EDT
For the ultimate outcome of the Arab Spring and the prospects of moderate Islamic influence of politics….
… is it more important that democracy not be thoroughly flouted as it just was in the removal of President Morsi in Egypt, or that a major lesson may have just been delivered to extreme Islamic parties/governments that had better govern inclusively or their people might prevent them from continuing to stay in office?
Dr. Jeffrey A. Stacey is currently Managing Partner of Geopolicity USA, an overseas development firm. Formerly he was Senior Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at SAIS, before which he served in the Obama Administration as a State Department official specializing in NATO and EU relations at the Bureau for Conflict Stabilization Operations. At State he founded and managed the International Stabilization and Peacebuilding Initiative (ISPI), which has over 20 government and international organization partners.
Dr. Stacey is the author of "Integrating Europe" by Oxford University Press and is currently working on a follow-up book entitled "End of the West, Rise of the East?" He has been a guest blogger at The Washington Note and Democracy Arsenal, a professor of U.S. foreign policy at Tulane University and Fordham University, a consultant at the Open Society Institute and the U.S. Institute of Peace, and a visiting scholar at George Washington, Georgetown, and the University of California. He received his PhD from Columbia University.
Surely there is no clear reason why the latter point- preventing them from continuing to stay in office- is entirely compatible with the democratic process? Would it be just for say the democrats in the U.S. to have ousted Bush by non-democratic means following massive street protests? If not, then one cannot support what occurred in Egypt (given, despite the protests, the very significant levels of support the ikwaan retain).
Is it not a bit much to imply that the MB are ‘an extreme Islamic’ movement?
I think the lesson is clear, that ‘the opposition’ don’t have to do the heavy lifting of building a movement, developing a coherent platform, compromising on their aspirations, all they have to do is make enough noise and hope the military find use for them
Actually, sorry, I see what you were saying re ‘extreme Islamic parties/governments ‘
Clearly the military chiefs are not be to be trusted, as there is emerging evidence inter alia of officials still in office from the Mubarak regime intentionally making conditions worse for average Egyptians so as to hasten their calls for throwing out Morsi and company…in nearly every region of the world today have recent examples of military officers removing democratically elected leaders without much interest in transitioning their regimes back to democratic ones…yet observers have done a lot of comparing of apples and oranges, whereas some fine analysis has come from across the board–George Will to David Ignatius to Amy Goodman–drawing an important distinction between de jure democracy and de facto freedom…I’m undecided myself, hopeful but painfully realistic