by Zack Beauchamp
Daniel Brumberg checks in on the Egyptian political scene:
Ultimately, the goal of the groups that led the Tahrir struggle should not be to recapture the glory days of mass protest, or to discredit their Islamists rivals in an epic contest to define the national identity of Egypt. The more prosaic aim should be to make sure that when elections come, these groups can obtain a small but loud organized voice in a new parliament, and in the constitutional council that the parliament will create.
Although they may imagine that the military is against them, leaders of the [Supreme Council of the Armed Forces] have openly hinted that the generals would probably prefer a diverse or even fragmented political arena, thus assuring the military a continued role as arbiter, even after it has formally handed over authority to a civilian government. Such a state of affairs will be the beginning of a long road. As in other states that have taken this road to democracy — Turkey, Chile, and Brazil, to name just a few — democratic forces will have to compromise with the past as they build a new political future. That won't be easy, but democracy rarely is.
Issandr El Amrani lodges a few complaints against Brumberg's article, though I am unpersuaded by his defense of Islamist parties.
The Dish 