Can Egyptians do it?

[Kasz216]

Rath said:

Kasz216 said:

mrstickball said:

Fully mixed feelings.

On one end, Egypt was a pretty benevolent dictatorship. Honsi Mubarak was certainly imperfect, but given his peers in the region, he looked like a saint: Made peace with Israel, never attacked anyone, never let the terrorists have their way in the region, and is generally (in my view) 'good'.

On the other end...It was still an authoritarian government, which likely was not the will of the people.

I worry what will become of this. I pray to God that if there is a revolution, they get a secular, Turkey-like Democracy that will strengthen ties with the west, and let people live in peace, and be very moderate to liberal for a Muslim-dominated state.

However, it seems that revolutions in the middle east are rarely a good thing :-

Worst yet, they are second or third in terms of US military support and aid. I would hate to see their M1 tanks turn on Israel, Turkey or other sane powers in the region.

Well revolutions EVERYWHERE are rarely a good thing.

I mean, the USA only got lucky that George Washington thought ruling as a dictatorship would be more of a pain then anything.

9 times out of 10 anywhere in the world, when their is a revolution, the Charismatic anti-goverment freedom promoting faction takes over and starts a dictatorship.

There is hope in that the people don't seem to be following any one person.  So that the different groups will be forced to work together.

Ironically, the road to democracy seems to be that of an unfocused uprising without a strong leader.

The Communist Europe revolutions are the closest analogue to these current ones, and those were almost all replaced with democracies.

Yeah, that was generally my thought as well.  It's why I'm hopefull.