This makes it sound like an agreement between the Egyptian government and protesters is in the works, but doesn't seem to say that an agreement was reached (leaving aside how do "representatives" of the protesters get the consent of the protesters?):
Egypt's vice president met a wide representation of major opposition groups for the first time Sunday and agreed to allow freedom of the press, to release those detained since anti-government protests began nearly two weeks and ago and to lift the country's hated emergency laws when security permits.
What I don't like is that the Moslem Brotherhood was there. Under no circumstances must the government allow the Moslem Brotherhood into the government:
I am more convinced now, as I wasn't when Paul Kennedy wrote about the rise and fall of great powers, that the West has gone over the tipping point in its terminal decline. That intelligent people, or people who claim to be intelligent, (I have in mind the talking heads in the U.S. media such as Chris Matthews or Fareed Zakaria) cannot make the difference between the sham of the Muslim Brotherhood talking about freedom and democracy and the generic thirst in man to be free. These are the people who have like the Bourbons learned nothing and forgotten nothing. They are glibly about to put the Lenins of our time into trains heading for Moscows of our time, they find nothing odd that they are pushing for the Muslim Brotherhood to be taken into governing when everything needs to be done to keep the Muslim Brotherhood out even as one carefully negotiate the long historic transition of Arab societies from tribal autorcracy and military dictatorships to representative rule and constitutionally limited government.
The Egyptian government--with our backing--must make the protesters understand that as a democracy movement, they should be the ones most insistent on keeping the anti-democracy Moslem Brotherhood out.
The same so-called smart people who like to warn us that elections in the Arab world just lead to people like Hamas taking over Gaza are Hell-bent on making sure that the Moslem Brotherhood takes part in the government and free elections that are to come. Funny how that works out.
UPDATE: Cue the idiots. In this case, Tom Friedman who manages both to link the unrest in the Arab world to China and discount the Moslem Brotherhood because they have gotten too "intellectually lazy" to compete in elections.
Good grief. The problem is that those "intellectually lazy" thugs will outmaneuver and ultimately just shoot the pro-democracy types. Remember, all the smart guys in the Russian revolution thought Stalin was too stupid to win, and that they could manipulate that brute into doing their dirty work only to dump him in the end. But that would tie in nicely with the China angle as the despots-to-be decide to be "China for a day" and slaughter the young, earnest, intellectually vigorous pro-democracy people on the streets.
UPDATE: Their role is up to Egyptians, according to Secretary Clinton:
While remaining non-committal about the Brotherhood's entry into the talks, she said "at least they are now involved in the dialogue."
"We are going to wait and see how this develops," she said.
Her comment suggests the administration would be willing to work with a government that includes the Brotherhood, but only if certain conditions were met.
Hopefully, Secretary Clinton is not taking a stand in public but we are pushing the exclusion of the Moslem Brotherhood behind the scenes.
