Change They Can Trust

The Republican and Democratic Institutes have been busy working in Egypt - openly - since 2005. Helping to assist with election monitoring during the parliamentary vote. They are funded by the U.S. Republican and Democratic parties. Their purpose, of course, is to assist in the support of achieving democracy within the Middle East. A pursuit reflective of the mission of the Bush administration in the U.S.

And the current de facto administration in Egypt, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, has charged human rights and pro-democracy groups, funded outside the country, with an agenda meant to destabilize the legitimacy of the country's own laws. The simple fact appears to be that under Egyptian law it is illegal for such groups to receive funding from foreign sources.

And it would be an interesting exercise in comparison to think of Egypt funding special-interest groups in the United States whose purpose is to destabilize the legitimacy of democratically elected governments for the goal of attempting to mobilize a change whereby a growing Muslim population would successfully insist on the installation of sharia law as a prelude to destroying democracy in America.

Wouldn't the American public, the judiciary, the administration, the political establishment and the news media go absolute insane with incredulous fury over anything like that? While it's entirely possible that this does indeed reflect a reality in the United States with undercover, coercive, invasive activities to alter the political scene, being undertaken, it isn't done openly.

Egypt, taking offence at the open machinations of the thirteen human rights and democracy-promotion groups, raided their offices, confiscated their equipment and ordered their personnel out. In a move that the regime's critics within the country characterized as more repressive than anything former President Hosni Mubarak would ever have embarked upon.

The United States, angered at the targeting of its U.S.-based democracy advocates has officially threatened to cut Egypt off from its traditional $1.3-billion annual military support. Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, now leader of the military council, and once a trusted adviser of former President Hosni Mubarak, has seen the utility of backing off.

Swearing that it is his intention and that of the military council to ensure that their commitment to a transition to democratic rule and corruption-free elections remains unchanged. Despite the concerns of the pro-democracy homegrown contingent of protesters who began the Arab Spring protests that the military's true agenda is to remain in power, pulling the strings of an elected administration.

Something that would prove difficult to achieve in any event, given the decisions by the Egyptian electorate to usher in a Muslim Brotherhood majority bracketed by an even more determined Salafist party whose call for Sharia law and a new Egypt will make Mubarak's rule look downright gentle by comparison.