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' tide' Weekly Standard 
Blaming the Jews—Again 
Elliott Abrams 
Article 2. The National Interest 
A New Hamas in the Making? 
Bilal Y. Saab 
Article 3. NYT 
The End, for Now 
Thomas L. Friedman 
Article 4. The Washington Post 
In Iraq, a return to old enmities 
Editorial 
Article 5. New York Review of Books 
Egypt on the Edge 
Yasmine El Rashidi 
Article 6. 
Article 7. 
INEGMA 
Syrian Uprising: Its Impact on Iran and Possibility of 
Civil War 
Riad KahwalL 
Foreign Policy 
Bashar al-Assad Is Every Bit His Father's Son 
Jerrold M. Post, Ruthie Pertsis 
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AnICIC 1. 
Weekly Standard 
Blaming the Jews—Again 
Elliott Abrams 
December 20, 2011 -- If you were an anti-Semite dedicated to 
spreading your hatred of Jews, what charges exactly would you make 
in 21st century America? 
You would avoid the blood libel—too medieval to write of 
sacrificing Christian children to make Passover matzo. That kind of 
stuff circulates in Arab lands or Pakistan, but won't sell in suburban 
America. And the "Christ-killer" material is also dated, what with 
Vatican II, Evangelical support for Israel, and the like. 
There are two charges you would make. First, the rich Jews control 
our government. Second, those Jews are trying to push America into 
war so your sons will have to fight for Israel. 
In the last week that is exactly what we have seen. First came the 
Thomas Friedman column in the New York Times: "I sure hope that 
Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the 
standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. 
That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby." Perhaps it 
was jealousy from seeing Walt and Mearsheimer sell all those books 
with this line, but Friedman here tips right into the swamps. 
And now we have Joe Klein, in Time magazine, in a section 
accurately entitled "Swampland": "Iowa Republicans are not 
neoconservatives. Ron Paul has gained ground after a debate in 
which his refusal to join the Iran warhawks was front and center. 
Indeed, in my travels around the country, I don't meet many 
neoconservatives outside of Washington and New York. It's one 
thing to just adore Israel, as the evangelical Christians do; it's another 
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thing entirely to send American kids off to war, yet again, to fight for 
Israel's national security." 
Now, Klein has chosen his medium well: Time has a history of anti-
Semitism, illustrated by its famous 1977 story about Israel's prime 
minister that began "Menachem Begin (rhymes with Fagin)." But 
Klein's thoughts are about as ugly as ever appear outside of Pat 
Buchanan's publications. "There are only two groups that are beating 
the drums for war in the Middle East-the Israeli Defense Ministry and 
its amen corner in the United States," Buchanan said in 1990. 
How different is that from what Klein just wrote? After all, Klein is 
saying (1) neoconservatives are Jews, and Jews are neoconservatives; 
(2) Evangelicals like Israel but they are real Americans who put their 
own country first, unlike Jews; (3) and what those 
Jews/neoconservatives really want is to send American boys off to 
fight Israel's wars, sparing Israeli kids and of course their own kids, 
who are apparently not "American kids" and anyway do not fight for 
their country. Of course Klein simply ignores the possibility that 
concern about the Iranian nuclear program does not make one a 
warmongering neoconservative, and actually extends even to 
Christians. Yesterday Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said, "The 
United States does not want Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. That's 
a red line for us and that's a red line, obviously, for the Israelis. If we 
have to do it we will deal with it....If they proceed and we get 
intelligence that they are proceeding with developing a nuclear 
weapon then we will take whatever steps necessary to stop it." 
Bought and paid for? Sending American kids off to fight for Israel's 
security? 
These two recent statements are as vicious as it gets in the 
mainstream media, and here we have two Jews—Friedman and 
Klein—spreading the two major themes of contemporary American 
anti-Semitism. Why? Why now? 
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Why does it matter? Perhaps it is their hatred of Israel's right of 
center government, or of modern Israel, or of the rise of Orthodoxy in 
Israel and in the American Jewish community. Let us not descend 
into such analyses when what matters is not abnormal psychology but 
the bounds of public discourse. Once upon a time, William F. 
Buckley banned Pat Buchanan from the pages of National Review 
and in essence drummed him out of the conservative movement for 
such accusations. Today, where are the Anti-Defamation League, and 
the American Jewish Committee, and all the Jewish "defense" 
organizations? Where are all the Jewish groups which have given 
Klein and Friedman awards, demanding them back? Where are 
Jewish Democrats in Congress, who have no doubt wined and dined 
both Klein and Friedman in a thousand dinner parties, 
and Congressional leaders from Nancy Pelosi to Harry Reid? And 
what about our other supposed moral leaders, religious, intellectual, 
or political? 
It isn't a small matter, because as we have learned the hard way with 
Walt and Mearsheimer, once the infection of anti-Semitism enters the 
mass media and the academy, it grows and grows. What begins as a 
"controversial statement" ends up on every reading list. Klein and 
Friedman, whatever their personal motivations for these statements, 
are helping popularize and make acceptable anti-Semitism in 
America. Their own publications will no doubt reward them for their 
advanced thinking. Will the rest of our society? 
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The National Interest 
A New Hamas in the Making? 
Bilal Y. Saab 
December 20, 2011 -- Jane's, an internationally respected British 
security and defense risk-analysis firm, has recently reported that 
Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, is on "the brink of renouncing 
armed resistance and moving to a policy of nonviolent resistance to 
Israel." Jane's, with which I have been a monthly writer to three of its 
publications since 2007, has several hard-to-ignore quotes in its 
report of Hamas leaders saying that the move was not "tactical" but 
"strategic." Also interviewed are Palestinian Authority intelligence 
officers who said that Hamas's strategy was "gradual and nuanced," 
with one senior officer telling Jane's that Hamas "intends to keep its 
military and security units to control the situation in Gaza, not 
necessarily to fight the Israelis." The interviewees' names were not 
mentioned for obvious security reasons. 
I urge every subscriber to Jane's to read that groundbreaking piece of 
reporting because, even if it is not publicly confirmed yet by Hamas's 
leadership, it has all the makings of a fascinating story which I am 
positive will generate an intense debate not only in the Arab world 
and Israel but also in Washington and other Western capitals. The 
story is starting to get serious attention in the international press with 
the Financial Times, Sydney Herald Tribune and other media outlets 
covering it. 
The report, written by my friend and colleague David Hartwell, 
Jane's Middle East and Islamic affairs editor, argues that the 
springboard for this new strategic approach by Hamas is the Arab 
uprising. More directly, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey reportedly played a 
key role in convincing Hamas to reconcile with its historical rival 
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Fatah and end armed resistance against Israel. Hartwell writes that 
Hamas leader Khaled Meshal, in a meeting on November 24 in Cairo 
with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, accepted "in writing 
with a signature" the need to embrace peaceful activism. And if this 
is not controversial enough, echoing Syrian opposition leader Burhan 
Ghalioun, Hamas's leadership also told Jane's that it will be 
"downgrading its ties with Syria and Iran and forge new relationships 
with Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey." 
In some ways, perhaps, this development could have been foreseen. 
Even the most ideological and stubborn actors in the Middle East 
have been forced to adjust to the new political realities created by the 
Arab uprising. Hezbollah in Lebanon, for example, has been feeling 
increasingly vulnerable and isolated lately because of the escalating 
civil conflict in Syria and the threat that poses to its ally, the Syrian 
regime. Hezbollah recently made significant concessions at home, 
including its approval of funding for the Special Tribunal for 
Lebanon—an entity that Hezbollah's leadership for years had viewed 
as a tool used by Israel and the United States to defeat it. Other signs 
of Hezbollah's contemplation of life after Syrian president Bashar 
Assad include its decision to move most of its military hardware that 
has been stored in Syria back to areas under its control inside 
Lebanon, including the South and the Bekaa. 
Yet despite its evident tactical adjustments, Hezbollah hasn't 
suggested any intent to disarm, forge new strategic alliances or end 
its military struggle against Israel. In fact, in a rare public appearance 
this month, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah declared that his party 
will remain defiant, side with Assad's Syria and never relinquish its 
arms. If Hamas, an ally of Hezbollah, Syria and Iran (the so-called 
Resistance Axis), truly intends to reinvent itself, that would be a 
historic development with massive political and security implications 
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not just for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but also for the whole of 
Middle East politics. 
There are numerous questions surrounding Hamas's reported 
decision, the most obvious being why it could have possibly adopted 
such a stance. It is one thing to say that Hamas felt motivated and/or 
pressured by Turkey, Egypt and Qatar to renounce violence. But it 
takes much more for an organization to abandon everything it has 
stood for and create for itself a new identity. After all, Saudi Arabia 
and Egypt have tried countless times in the past to shape Hamas and 
lure it, with financial and political rewards, to leave the pro-Iran-
Syria-Hezbollah camp and give up armed struggle. The strategy did 
not work simply because Hamas felt it had much more to lose than 
gain. The Resistance Axis was always on the rise, especially after the 
2003 Iraq war as Iran and Syria gained influence in the region at the 
expense of their rivals. 
No more. Today, with Iran feeling more cornered by the international 
community (minus Russia and China) than ever because of its 
controversial nuclear program and with Syria's regime fighting an 
existential battle against its own people, the balance of power is 
shifting in the Middle East, and this has not gone unnoticed by 
Hamas. It is foolish to deny that Hamas's decisions and behavior 
have been partly driven by ideological convictions and motivations, 
but it is also wrong to argue the organization has not acted rationally, 
based on material interest. The decision it reportedly has currently 
taken may be further proof of that. 
While it is important to remember that Hamas's leadership has not 
gone public with its decision, it is worth noting that the majority of its 
external political staff has already evacuated Damascus, where it has 
a key office managed by Meshal. Their next destination is likely to be 
Cairo and Doha, where leaders there have committed to sponsoring 
the movement politically and financially. Unlike Hezbollah, Hamas 
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has refused to say publicly that it is siding with the Syrian regime, a 
move that has angered not only the Syrian leadership but also the 
mullahs in Tehran—causing them, according to Jane's and other 
sources, to stop providing financial assistance. With money drying up 
and winds of change rocking the region, it is no wonder Hamas was 
fed up with Syria and Iran. One also cannot exclude the sectarian 
underpinnings of Hamas's decision. While Hamas never allowed its 
religious identity—Sunni—to prevent it from forming necessary and 
strategic alliances with Shiite Iran and Hezbollah, the party is 
pragmatic enough to realize that positioning itself against the Sunni 
Islamist tide that is currently sweeping the region (in Egypt, Libya, 
Tunisia, possibly Syria and elsewhere) is against its long-term 
interests. Having operated in the Iranian strategic orbit in the past, 
Hamas might now wish to embrace its old identity as a branch of the 
Sunni Muslim Brotherhood. 
Hamas's decision, if real, will take time to implement. Since its 
founding in 1987, the organization's bread-and-butter stance has been 
armed resistance coupled with terrorist activity. Should Hamas's 
leadership publicly state its new strategy, the first thing it will have to 
do is come up with a new charter as evidence to the world that its 
move is not propaganda. The organization will also need substantial 
help from Arab countries and others interested in such a 
development. The world, including the United States, will not accept 
Hamas's transformation if it is half-hearted. In other words, Hamas 
will have to integrate its military into the security forces of the 
Palestinian Authority in order to get the attention and support it 
desires. 
The implications of such a Hamas decision could be huge. 
Theoretically, it will create a united Palestinian front. In other words, 
there would be few divisions within Palestinian society to inhibit 
progress in negotiations with the Israelis, a major boost for the 
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Palestinian cause. Two things remain unclear, however: how 
Hamas's constituency and Israel would deal with this massive shift. It 
is not unreasonable to assume that Hamas would not make such a 
dramatic move without testing the waters and feeling the mood in the 
Palestinian street. Hamas knows its constituency well enough to 
realize that the costs it might suffer as a result of such a decision are 
likely to be tolerable. Furthermore, Hamas's support base is not 
necessarily ideological. Many credible polls suggest that those who 
have voted for Hamas over the past few years have done so out of 
pragmatic reasons and anger toward Fatah for its governmental 
failures. As far as Israel is concerned, the suspicion is that moderates 
and those truly committed to peace and a two-state solution will be 
supportive of Hamas's transformation. The hard-liners will remain 
critical and will always find an excuse to object. Marking its twenty-
fourth anniversary this week, Hamas leaders did not even hint that 
they may switch strategy. They insisted instead that they will never 
recognize Israel. For Israeli hard-liners, this is reason enough to 
remain skeptical of any move by Hamas. 
If Hamas actually seeks to pursue such a decision, the United States 
will be confronted with a crucial choice. It can lend its verbal and 
material support for the move and cite its concerns and reservations. 
Or it can stand against it and endorse whatever the Israeli government 
says and does on the matter. Hence, a large onus likely will rest on 
Washington as well as on Hamas. 
Bilal Y. Saab is Visiting Fellow at the James Martin Center for 
Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International 
Studies. 
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AnICIC 3. 
NYT 
The End, for Now 
Thomas L. Friedman 
December 20, 2011 -- With the withdrawal of the last U.S. troops 
from Iraq, we're finally going to get the answer to the core question 
about that country: Was Iraq the way Iraq was because Saddam was 
the way Saddam was, or was Saddam the way Saddam was because 
Iraq is the way Iraq is — a collection of sects and tribes unable to live 
together except under an iron fist. Now we're going to get the answer 
because both the internal iron fist that held Iraq together (Saddam 
Hussein) and the external iron fist (the U.S. armed forces) have been 
removed. Now we will see whether Iraqis can govern themselves in a 
decent manner that will enable their society to progress — or end up 
with a new iron fist. You have to hope for the best because so much 
is riding on it, but the early signs are worrying. 
Iraq was always a war of choice. As I never bought the argument that 
Saddam had nukes that had to be taken out, the decision to go to war 
stemmed, for me, from a different choice: Could we collaborate with 
the people of Iraq to change the political trajectory of this pivotal 
state in the heart of the Arab world and help tilt it and the region onto 
a democratizing track? After 9/11, the idea of helping to change the 
context of Arab politics and address the root causes of Arab state 
dysfunction and Islamist terrorism — which were identified in the 
2002 Arab Human Development Report as a deficit of freedom, a 
deficit of knowledge and a deficit of women's empowerment —
seemed to me to be a legitimate strategic choice. But was it a wise 
choice? 
My answer is twofold: "No" and "Maybe, sort of, we'll see." 
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I say "no" because whatever happens in Iraq, even if it becomes 
Switzerland, we overpaid for it. And, for that, I have nothing but 
regrets. We overpaid in lives, in the wounded, in tarnished values, in 
dollars and in the lost focus on America's development. Iraqis, of 
course, paid dearly as well. 
One reason the costs were so high is because the project was so 
difficult. Another was the incompetence of George W. Bush's team 
in prosecuting the war. The other reason, though, was the nature of 
the enemy. Iran, the Arab dictators and, most of all, Al Qaeda did not 
want a democracy in the heart of the Arab world, and they tried 
everything they could — in Al Qaeda's case, hundreds of suicide 
bombers financed by Arab oil money — to sow enough fear and 
sectarian discord to make this democracy project fail. 
So no matter the original reasons for the war, in the end, it came 
down to this: Were America and its Iraqi allies going to defeat Al 
Qaeda and its allies in the heart of the Arab world or were Al Qaeda 
and its allies going to defeat them? Thanks to the Sunni Awakening 
movement in Iraq, and the surge, America and its allies defeated 
them and laid the groundwork for the most important product of the 
Iraq war: the first ever voluntary social contract between Sunnis, 
Kurds and Shiites for how to share power and resources in an Arab 
country and to govern themselves in a democratic fashion. America 
helped to midwife that contract in Iraq, and now every other Arab 
democracy movement is trying to replicate it — without an American 
midwife. You see how hard it is. 
Which leads to the "maybe, sort of, we'll see." It is possible to 
overpay for something that is still transformational. Iraq had its 
strategic benefits: the removal of a genocidal dictator; the defeat of 
Al Qaeda there, which diminished its capacity to attack us; the 
intimidation of Libya, which prompted its dictator to surrender his 
nuclear program (and helped expose the Abdul Qadeer Khan nuclear 
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network); the birth in Kurdistan of an island of civility and free 
markets and the birth in Iraq of a diverse free press. But Iraq will 
only be transformational if it truly becomes a model where Shiites, 
Sunnis and Kurds, the secular and religious, Muslims and non-
Muslims, can live together and share power. 
As you can see in Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Libya and Bahrain, this is the 
issue that will determine the fate of all the Arab awakenings. Can the 
Arab world develop pluralistic, consensual politics, with regular 
rotations in power, where people can live as citizens and not feel that 
their tribe, sect or party has to rule or die? This will not happen 
overnight in Iraq, but if it happens over time it would be 
transformational, because it is the necessary condition for democracy 
to take root in that region. Without it, the Arab world will be a 
dangerous boiling pot for a long, long time. 
The best-case scenario for Iraq is that it will be another Russia — an 
imperfect, corrupt, oil democracy that still holds together long 
enough so that the real agent of change — a new generation, which 
takes nine months and 21 years to develop — comes of age in a much 
more open, pluralistic society. The current Iraqi leaders are holdovers 
from the old era, just like Vladimir Putin in Russia. They will always 
be weighed down by the past. But as Putin is discovering — some 21 
years after Russia's democratic awakening began — that new 
generation thinks differently. I don't know if Iraq will make it. The 
odds are really long, but creating this opportunity was an important 
endeavor, and I have nothing but respect for the Americans, Brits and 
Iraqis who paid the price to make it possible. 
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The Washington Post 
In Iraq, a return to old enmities 
Editorial 
December 21 -- PRESIDENT OBAMA struck a "mission 
accomplished" tone when he greeted Noun al-Maliki at the White 
House last week, heaping praise on the Iraqi prime minister and 
declaring that he "leads Iraq's most inclusive government yet." It 
didn't take long for those words to boomerang. No sooner had Mr. 
Maliki returned to Baghdad than he launched what looks like an 
attempted coup against the country's top Sunni leaders. Though the 
outcome is still in doubt, Iraq's fragile political order appears in 
danger of crumbling just days after the departure of U.S. troops. 
Mr. Maliki's strike took the form of criminal charges against Vice 
President Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni known for his attempts to find 
accord with Shiite leaders. Three security guards arrested last week 
were paraded on state television Monday, where they confessed to 
acts of terrorism and alleged that Mr. Hashimi had directed them. Mr. 
Maliki, meanwhile, asked parliament for a no-confidence vote against 
Deputy Prime Minister Saleh Mutlaq, another Sunni. Sunni members 
of parliament and cabinet ministers responded by suspending their 
work — threatening a governmental collapse. 
We haven't seen enough to judge the charges against Mr. Hashemi, 
and few Sunni or Shiite leaders are free of any link to the violence 
that has wracked Iraq since 2003. But both the timing and the 
televised form of Mr. Maliki's charges against the vice president 
were blatantly political. They followed what has been a mounting 
campaign by the prime minister, a Shiite with close ties to Iran, 
against perceived Sunni enemies. Hundreds of former members of 
Saddam Hussein's Baath party have been arrested in recent weeks. 
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Security forces controlled by Mr. Maliki have surrounded the 
compounds of Sunni leaders in Baghdad. 
The Obama administration appears blindsided by the crisis. It 
shouldn't be so surprised. It risked just such a breakdown when it 
disregarded the recommendation of its military commanders that 
some U.S. forces remain in Iraq to help guarantee against a return to 
sectarian conflict. Sunni and Kurdish leaders also urged U.S. officials 
to broker a deal for a stay-on force with Mr. Maliki; now they say 
their worst fears may be coming to pass. "The Americans pulled out 
without completing the job they should have finished," Iyad Allawi, 
the leader of the secular political bloc supported by most Sunnis, told 
the Reuters news agency Tuesday. 
The U.S. withdrawal was forced in part by a deal struck by the Bush 
administration, as well as domestic pressure on Mr. Maliki from 
Iran's proxies. But White House aides who argued that no stay-on 
force was necessary will now see their argument tested. U.S. 
diplomats in Baghdad are trying to help Iraq's Kurdish president and 
foreign minister defuse the incipient conflict; Vice President Biden 
was on the phone Tuesday to Mr. Maliki and the Sunni speaker of 
parliament. Washington's leverage includes the promised sale to Mr. 
Maliki's government of F-16 warplanes and training for Iraqi pilots. 
Mr. Maliki has said he wishes to maintain a strategic partnership with 
the United States. If that's true, Mr. Obama might still rescue the 
situation by delivering the message he failed to communicate in 
public last week: Such an alliance cannot be maintained with an Iraqi 
government that pursues a sectarian agenda or seeks authoritarian 
power. 
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AniCIC 5. 
New York Review of Books 
Egypt on the Edge 
Yasmine El Rashidi 
January 12, 2012 -- It has been almost one year since Hosni Mubarak 
gave up power, and in the months since then, the future of a newly 
democratic Egypt has been uncertain. The political transition all but 
stalled this past summer, as tensions between Muslims and Copts 
erupted, street violence flared, and the various post-Mubarak political 
factions repeatedly disagreed on the form the new Egypt should have. 
This fall, the military council now ruling the country—the Supreme 
Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF)—was itself drawn into violent 
conflict with protesters, leading to more than forty deaths in a single 
week. Many wondered, amid all this, if a democratically elected 
civilian government would ever take office. 
In late November, as Egyptians finally went to the polling stations, 
the direction the country would most likely take was at last becoming 
clear. If the preliminary results of the parliamentary elections are any 
indication, most Egyptians want a country governed by the Islamists, 
whom Mubarak and his allies had aggressively tried to suppress. In 
the first of a three-stage election process, which began on November 
28 and ends on January 10, the Islamist factions emerged with 69.6 
percent of the votes. Only nine of Egypt's twenty-seven governorates 
voted in the first stage on November 28, and there are several weeks 
to go until the rest cast their ballots—there are some 52 million 
registered voters in all—but since many of the remaining electoral 
districts are ones in which the Islamists are known to have a strong 
popular following, it seems likely that their lead will be maintained, 
if not strengthened. 
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That the country's first free and fair elections will likely result in a 
parliament in which the Islamists have a dominant majority is casting 
doubt on the promise of the democratic state that many who took part 
in the revolution hoped to achieve. When youth protesters first took 
to Cairo's Tahrir Square on January 25, they chanted their desire, 
among other things, for a state that promised social justice, unity, and 
equal rights for all. For eighteen days last winter, that model for a 
new and democratic Egypt seemed plausible; it was being lived in 
Tahrir. Copts and Muslims, women and men, youth and the elderly, 
secular and religious protested and prayed together and shared tents 
and meals. The Copts shielded the Muslims against possible attacks 
by thugs while they knelt down and prayed, and hundreds of the 
youth members of the Muslim Brotherhood surrounded the square as 
guardians for all, searching bags, checking IDs, and trying to ensure 
that informants or people hoping to disrupt the demonstrations would 
be swiftly escorted out. 
In the aftermath of the first election results, many are wondering if 
the unity that came to typify the Tahrir protests is now a dream of the 
past. What is the fate of an Islamist-dominated Egypt? And what does 
it mean for the country's liberal minorities—the Coptic Christian 
community, the moderate Muslim upper class, the remaining handful 
of Jews, and middle-class Muslims who in spite of their adherence to 
the rituals of Islam are committed to preserving the cosmopolitan 
Egypt they grew up in? The concerns of some of these groups are 
largely about the ways they will live. Will women be prevented from 
working? Will the veil become compulsory? Will public spaces be 
segregated to separate men from women? (Such measures are 
supported by the Salafist Al-Nour Party, which has so far received 
18.5 percent of the vote.) For the Copts, who make up some 10 
percent of the country's 82 million people and who have faced 
increasing persecution since Mubarak stepped down on February 11, 
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whether they will be left to freely practice their faith is an acute and 
daily concern. 
Many people are also worried that tourism and the economy might 
suffer a ruinous blow if laws are passed to ban bathing suits and 
alcohol and to cover pharaonic monuments—as several Islamists 
have proposed in recent months. Although the Muslim Brotherhood 
in particular has so far expressed its commitment to building a 
democratic and moderate society, many fear that once the Islamists 
settle into power, their tune might change. 
The likelihood of Egypt transforming from a moderate and open 
society to one resembling Saudi Arabia or Iran seems highly 
improbable, at least in the short or medium term. After 498 members 
of the 508-seat "lower parliament" are finally installed on January 14 
(the remaining ten members will be appointed by the SCAF), there 
will be elections for the parliament's "upper house." This will be a 
consultative council of 270 seats-180 of which will be filled by 
elections, and 90 by members appointed by the SCAF, a clear sign of 
the continuing powers of the military. Once that entire structure is in 
place, the parliament's immediate task will be to select a committee 
to draft the long-awaited new constitution. 
Since the revolution last winter, the subject of the constitution has 
proved to be divisive, pitting political factions against one another for 
eight months. The Islamists, confident of winning the elections, were 
demanding that the newly elected parliament be granted absolute 
authority to draft the constitution to its liking. The liberals for their 
part wanted a supraconstitutional declaration promising respect for 
religious minorities, as well as the broader vision of a democratic 
state. To each draft of such a document (proposals were made by 
both leaders of the Muslim Al-Azhar University and the interim 
deputy prime minister) the various factions have had objections. On 
December 7, the SCAF further complicated matters by announcing 
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that it would appoint a council to oversee the drafting of the 
constitution in order to limit the influence of religious extremism. 
The de facto military rulers now seem intent on using the rising threat 
of Islamist rule as their excuse for remaining involved in the 
country's affairs, and the future power of the army, which has large 
economic influence and holdings, remains a central question for 
Egyptian politics. 
Under current rules, for example, the parliament will have limited 
powers. The military council that is now running the country will 
continue to have overriding authority, which it has used to curb 
media freedoms and arbitrarily subject civilians to military trials. It is 
expected that the parliamentary majority will try to put pressure on 
the military by passing legislation giving itself the absolute right to 
appoint a new government and to draft the constitution that will 
shape the country's future (already this week the Brotherhood 
accused the military of trying to undermine the parliament's authority 
and said they would boycott the advisory council being formed by 
them to oversee the drafting of the constitution). With the political 
balance of the new parliament favoring the Islamists, the liberals 
worry about the ideological direction Egypt might take. As such 
concerns have increased, many liberals have slowly shifted away 
from their previously staunch opposition both to the SCAF and to the 
remnants of the former regime—the felool. 
The largest liberal coalition, El-Kotla or the Egyptian Bloc, includes 
many former MPs who had strong influence under the Mubarak 
regime. Liberals now view them as preferable to the Islamists. 
Members of the Egyptian Bloc are also now advocating the continued 
involvement of the SCAF in the country's affairs so that it can 
guarantee that the basic tenets of the constitution remain untouched—
namely, that Egypt remain a democratic, modern state, a commitment 
the SCAF has repeatedly made. 
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What will happen, then, when the new parliament begins its first 
session in March? Most likely we can expect continuing arguments 
over the extent of the parliament's authority, the timetable for 
transition and the handing over of powers from the military, and what 
the new cabinet should look like. In the debate over the constitution 
many of the Islamists, in particular those of the Muslim Brotherhood, 
will probably try to exert influence not through outright demands that 
it be based on Islamic sharia law—already, Article 2 in the current 
constitution states that Islam is the religion of the state and the 
principle source of legislation is Islamic jurisprudence—but rather 
through a subtle play on words and syllables in the Arabic language 
that can convey double meanings. They will favor a constitution with 
provisions that provide leeway for later reinterpretation. There will 
no doubt be fanatical members of the ultra-orthodox Salafis who push 
for a constitution that asserts boldly and clearly that Egypt is an 
Islamic state—indeed, some Salafis are already supporting this—but 
it is doubtful that they will form an overriding majority. 
The transitional parliament could be in power for what might be as 
little as a one-year term, while a regular term in the previous 
Egyptian parliament was five years. The two largest political factions 
in the so-called "lower house"—the Muslim Brotherhood 
(represented by its political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party 
(FJP)) and the Salafi Al-Nour Party—are well aware that within that 
term, their constituents will expect them to deliver on some of their 
promises. Among the failures of both the SCAF and the various 
interim cabinets in recent months have been their responses to the 
demands of the revolutionaries, which have resulted in large-scale 
protests calling for them to step down. Egyptians will expect that the 
parliament deliver some tangible and immediate results—a pressure 
that will be felt by the liberal MPs as well. 
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The Muslim Brotherhood has decades of organizational and 
administrative experience. Aside from its expansive nationwide 
networks, its services to the needy have included selling meat at 
wholesale prices, offering subsidized school supplies, helping with 
medical treatment, and providing handouts of fresh produce, sugar, 
cooking oil, and other items. These activities have won it popular 
followings. The Brotherhood has also long had leading and 
instrumental parts in the country's various professional syndicates 
and labor unions. The doctors', lawyers', and engineers' syndicates, 
for example, have historically been dominated and led by 
Brotherhood members. At the journalists' syndicate, reporters say 
that some of the board members affiliated with the Brotherhood have 
provided the best and most efficient services to the syndicate's 
members to date—health care plans, for example. 
It is the Brotherhood's strengths in such different spheres of life—
both in municipal welfare and as prominent business owners 
themselves—that give rise to hopes that it will be a positive force in 
Egypt. Essam el-Erian, deputy head of the Brotherhood's Freedom 
and Justice Party and the group's long-time spokesperson, told me 
this week: "We are ready for democracy and this parliament will 
work to rebuild this country for all Egyptians." The party's secretary-
general, Mohamed el-Beltagy, said something similar, insisting that 
the parliament, and his party in particular, would serve as "the 
representative of the people": "we have to respect one another and 
defend the rights of all Egyptians—of the entire nation and its 
people." 
The FJP seems to know that it has little choice but to act in a 
moderate and strategic manner. Issues of education, the economy, 
and rising inflation are of critical concern and need to be tackled 
immediately. In both their pre-election campaign rallies and recent 
press conferences, the Brotherhood leaders have promoted moderate 
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