Thomas L. Friedman
A few items came across the desk last week that underscore the challenge America faces in making policy toward the Islamist parties that are emerging as the early beneficiaries of the uprisings across the Arab world. The first was a news article about the January 11 meeting in Cairo between Bill Burns,a deputy secretary of state,and Muhammad Morsi,the chairman of the Muslim Brotherhoods political party,during which Morsi said his party believes in the importance of US-Egyptian relations, but said they must be balanced.
Finally,came the news that Naguib Sawiris an Egyptian telecommunications mogul and Coptic Christian who is the founder of one of Egypts new secular,liberal parties was being charged with contempt of religion for retweeting images from last June that show Mickey Mouse with a full beard and wearing a traditional Islamic robe and Minnie Mouse wearing a full-face veil with just slits for her eyes.
There are two ways to read these news reports. One is that the Brotherhood and other Islamists are cleverly hoodwinking the naïve foreigners,feeding them the lines they want to hear. The other is that the Islamists never expected to be dominating Egypts new parliament with more responsibility than other parties for completing the countrys democratic transition,constitution-writing and election of a new president and they are trying to figure out how to reconcile some of their ideology,with all of their new responsibilities.
My view is that both can be and are true at the same time. In my mind,we all have to guard against lazy happy talk about the rise of the Islamist parties in Egypt (Ive met with them; they all seem reasonable) and lazy determinism (Just read what they say in Arabic; they clearly have a secret plan to take over Egypt).
In the happy talk department,please dont tell me that the rule of Turkeys Islamist Justice and Development Party,known as the AKP,proves that no one has anything to fear about Islamists taking power democratically. There is much I admire in the AKPs performance. But I will only cite the AKP as a reassuring example of Islam and democracy in harmony after I see it lose an election and vacate power. That is the real test.
American policy needs to be based on the assumption that,like all parties,Islamist parties contain moderates,centrists and hard-liners. Which wing will dominate as they assume the responsibilities of governing is still an open question. America needs to offer the Islamists firm,quiet (you can easily trigger a nationalist backlash) and patient engagement that says: We believe in free and fair elections,human rights,womens rights,minority rights,free markets,civilian control of the military,religious tolerance and the Egypt-Israel peace treaty,and we will offer assistance to anyone who respects those principles.
Egypt is not destined to be Iran,but the Muslim Brotherhood is not destined to be the Muslim version of Christian Democrats either. There is an evolution under way this is a very plastic moment and our best chance of having an effect is to make sure we deal in a principled way with the Islamists and with the Egyptian army. The Egyptian army is also trying to figure out its role in this new Egypt. It is balancing its desire to protect its economic interests,avoid prosecution for any killings of demonstrators and maintain its status as guardian of Egypts secular nationalist tradition. We need the Egyptian army to play the constructive role that the Turkish army once played as midwife and protector of a gradual democratic transition and not become the Pakistani army,which evolved into a predatory institution dedicated to an aggressive foreign policy to justify its huge budget.
In short,the days of dealing with Egypt with one phone call to one man just one time are over. This is going to require really,really,really sophisticated diplomacy with multiple players seven days a week.
