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Egypt Vote Heading to Runoff - Abigail Hauslohner, Time

Farmers and laborers have waited for hours in a long line outside the polling station in the impoverished village of Kirdasah, on Cairo’s western outskirts, but their spirits a...

Have Faith in Egypt - Ferry de Kerckhove, Ottawa Citizen

The lineups were impressive. The joy was palpable as the greatest political event in the modern history of Egypt began to take place this week: the people of the land of the phar...

Israel About to Lose Its Best Arab Friend? - Oren Kessler, Foreign Policy

Egypt's presidential elections are keeping Israeli officials awake at night. Will their closest Arab friend soon be an enemy?...

Egypt's Ultraconservatives Planting Seeds in Vote - Aya Batrawy, AP

For Egypt's most conservative Islamists, the country's first competitive presidential election has been a test of their political savvy as they try to plant the seeds for turning...

Egypt Leads the Way - Gulf News

Election sets a precedent for the region in terms of transfer and sharing of power....

Egypt Presidential Race Polarizes Nation - Maggie Michael, Associated Press

Egypt's wide-open presidential election, which was in its second day of voting Thursday, is showing how deeply polarized the nation has become, with backers of rival Islamists a...

9/11 'Truther' Leading Egyptian Race - Ben Birnbaum, Washington Times

An Islamist who believes that the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States were an American conspiracy is the front-runner in Egypt’s presidential race, a new poll shows. ...

A Watershed Election for the Arab World - Gulf News

Despite the political decay of the Hosni Mubarak years, Egypt's size and vigour still make it the intellectual leader of the Arab world. Therefore what happens in Egypt this week...

Two Faces of the Muslim Brotherhood - Alexander Smoltczyk, Der Spiegel

The Muslim Brotherhood is the strongest political force in Egypt, which is holding presidential elections this week, yet opinions are divided over the nature of the movement and...

Game of the Least Bad Option in Egypt - Magdi Abdelhadi, The Guardian

Egyptians are being asked not to choose the future but to choose between various versions of an imagined glorious past....

Egypt Election Could Change Arab World - Peter Goodspeed, National Post

It may be the last battle of Egypt’s revolution. After 60 years of military rule and stage-managed elections, the country holds its first-ever competitive presidential elec...

Egypt Sends Message to Arab World - Roula Khalaf, The World

Egypt’s “pioneering” role is hailed this morning by the press in the Arab world. And for good reason: the Egyptian presidential election is a historic moment for the region...

Sharia Can Support Democracy - Delkhasteh & Rezaei, CS Monitor

The role of Islam in government is a big question in today's presidential election in Egypt.The leading candidates are debating it, and so are people struggling for freedom across ...

Egypt's Pro-Military Candidate - Abigail Hauslohner, Time

The tension inside Shafik's poorly organized campaign is high, but the controversy brewing around it is even higher. And that's the reason everyone is anxious. Shafik was once the ...

The Islamist Backed by Hardliners and Liberals - Dan Ephron, Newsweek

This week, Egyptians go to the polls to choose their first democratically-elected president from about a dozen candidates. Though they’ve had several other votes in the past ...

Muslim Brotherhood's Presidential Dilemma - Shadi Hamid, The Atlantic

When the Muslim Brotherhood announced that Mohamed Morsi would be its candidate for president, the Egyptian press had a field day. Morsi was an accident of history, the "substitute...

Egypt's March Toward Democracy - Ahmed Zewail, New York Times

A few days ago, I watched a debate between Amr Moussa and Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, two of the leading candidates among the 13 running for president of Egypt. This stunning deba...

From Democracy to Sharia - Andrew McCarthy, National Review

Yesterday’s euphoria is melting into today’s harsh reality. In Cairo, home to the Muslim Brotherhood and the sharia jurists of ancient Al-Azhar University, “dem...

Muslim Brotherhood Draws in the Salafis - Hassan Hassan, The National

Any Egyptian Muslim who does not vote for Mohammed Morsi will be bitten by a serpent in his grave for four years. That fatwa, attributed to a Salafi cleric last week, made headline...

Egypt's Radicals Mean What They Say - Barry Rubin, Jerusalem Post

Do radical ideological movements say things in their campaigns to gain power, including election campaigns, which disappear due to the pragmatism forced by the need to govern?...

Facebook Generation's Egyptian Failure - Francis Fukuyama, Daily Beast

How did we come to this pass, where the two most powerful forces in the new Egypt either represent its authoritarian past, or else are Islamists of suspect liberal credentials?...

After the Arab Spring - Judith Miller, New York Post

When Egyptians go to the polls Wednesday and Thursday, they will be choosing not only Egypt's first democratically elected president, but also the future identity and political d...

Support for Political Islamists Declines in Egypt - Younis & Younis, Gallup

Islamists appear to be losing steam in the lead-up to Egypt's presidential election next week, according to recent Gallup surveys. Less than half of Egyptians (42%) polled in Apr...

Egypt Gets the Election It Deserves - Ashraf Khalil, Cairo Review

As Egyptians prepare to vote in the first presidential election since the end of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, the old aphorism comes to mind: “Every nation has the governmen...

Egypt: Game of Chess Without a King - Issandr El Amrani, The National

The two most potent political actors on the scene, the military and the Muslim Brotherhood, are exchanging strong words; every day there is a twist and turn, usually involving so...

Egypt Democracy Will Undermine Israel 'Peace' - Ray Hanania, J'lem Post

Are Israelis surprised that as democracy trumps tyranny in Egypt, one of first casualties is Israel peace accord?...

What Do Egyptians Want? - Barry Rubin, Jerusalem Post

Many Egyptians will die, as will U.S. interests. Will the Western apologists and enablers have a clear conscience?...

Is Russia Going the Way of Egypt? - Victor Davidoff, Moscow Times

Historians have long noted a characteristic feature of Russian history: Sometimes development seems to freeze for many years and almost comes to a standstill, only to suddenly surg...

Israel Amid an Islamist Middle East - Stefan Kirschner, Jerusalem Post

With the outcome of the ongoing Egyptian elections looking grim (to Westerners) due to the strength of the Muslim Brotherhood and the even more extreme Salafi parties, many are d...

Can Islamists Be Liberals? - Mustafa Akyol, New York Times

For those concerned about extremism in the Middle East, this is good news. It was the exclusion and suppression of Islamists by secular tyrants that originally bred extremism. (Aym...

How the Arab Spring Defeated al-Qaeda - Fawaz Gerges, The Daily Beast

In his newly released papers, Osama bin Laden recognized the gravity of the loss of Muslim opinion, though he was powerless and sidelined to halt the decline....

First Arab World Debate Lacks Substance - Daily Star

People in Egypt, and the rest of the Arab world, experienced a novel sight this week when two presidential candidates squared off in a televised debate. In terms of form, the event...

U.S. Must Secure Israel-Egypt Peace - Andrew Exum, World Politics Review

If Americans do not appreciate the Israeli-Egyptian peace now, though, they certainly will when it is no longer there. And for the first time in 30 years, that is a real possibil...

Who Will Rule Sinai? - Zvi Mazel, Jerusalem Post

Nothing can be accomplished in Sinai before order is restored, the efforts of which are hindered by ongoing power struggles in Cairo....

One Year Later, Egyptians Embrace Democracy, Political Islam - Pew

Last year, Egyptians took to the streets to protest their dissatisfaction with then-President Hosni Mubarak, as one of many events that became known as the "Arab Spring." A new ...

Egypt Doesn't Need Another Military Dictatorship - Dawn

ver since Mubarak was sent packing in February 2011, there has been a widespread trust deficit between the people and the military council. In the meantime, liberals, leftists, Isl...

U.S. Media Gets Egyptian Candidate All Wrong - Eric Trager, New Republic

American media has had a tough time acknowledging the dispiriting truth that Egypt's presidential race is now a contest between theocratic Islamists such as the Muslim Brotherhoo...

Egypt Is Taking U.S. Money and Running - Washington Post

In a number of tangible ways, U.S.-Egyptian relations and the military's treatment of civil society have deteriorated since the waiver was issued March 23....

A Worrisome Spat Between Egypt and Saudi Arabia - Daily Star

The protests outside Saudi Arabian embassies in Egypt in recent days risk setting a dangerous precedent in relations between the two countries that would be to Egypt’s detrim...

In Egypt, the Horror and the Pita - David Goldman, Asia Times

Egypt's national tragedy took a turn towards farce April 27, when Saudi Arabia closed its embassy and several consulat...

Media Crudility and 'Egypt Necrophilia Law' - Michael Collins Dunn, MEI

A quote attributed (dubiously) to Mark Twain has it that "A lie can go halfway around the world while truth is getting its boots on." And that was before the Internet. There was ...

The Good (and Bad) of Egypt's Election - Jorg Luyken, Haaretz

Despite its cancellation of its natural-gas contract with Israel, not all the news out of Egypt is discouraging. For the first time in perhaps the entire history of the country, a ...

Turkey Has Reasons to Fear Arab Spring - Ersin Kalaycioglu, Bitter Lemons

When the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Sidi Bouzid led to an avalanche of protests in Tunisia in January 2011, nearly the entire Arab world began to rock with popular upri...

Is Egypt Headed for Islamist Rule? - Isobel Coleman, CNN

Egypt's presidential race has been a political roller coaster. After banning 10 candidates earlier this month, the country's election commission banned and unbanned this week yet...

In 2012, to the Victors Go the Foils - Richard Haass, Project Syndicate

A surprising number of elections and political transitions is scheduled to occur over the coming months. An incomplete list includes Russia, China, France, the United States, Eg...

Egypt's Voters Still Face Real Choices - Amir Taheri, New York Post

All the candidates played virtually no role in the uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak's despotic regime - but, paradoxically, that, too, might not be a bad thing. Having been spec...

Obama Embraces Islamism - Washington Times

The Obama administration is doing its utmost to promote the fortunes of the Islamist parties in Egypt. A State Department official declared that with the rise of these radical grou...

Why Israel Can't Risk a Rift with Egypt - Chemi Shalev, West of Eden

Israel’s controversial Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has a long track record of diplomatic flare-ups with Egypt. He once threatened that Israel would bomb the Aswan Dam....

Old Mubarak Hands Vie for Supremacy - Khairi Abaza, National Interest

In late May, Egyptians will vote in the first free presidential election in their history. But despite parliamentary elections and other inklings of democracy, the forces of the o...

Arab Christians Must fight for Recognition - Samer Libdeh, The Guardian

To reach out to post-revolution states, Arab Christians must focus on common interests and offer support in return for rights....

Israel Still Mulling Iran Strike

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to visit Capitol Hill Tuesday after sitting down with President Obama Monday to talk about Iran.Monday's discussion was important for ...

Egypt

Egypt Presidential Race Polarizes Nation

Have Faith in Egypt

Israel About to Lose Its Best Arab Friend?

Game of the Least Bad Option in Egypt

Sharia Can Support Democracy

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