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Comment by jordanb | Hacker News Reader

I'm very ambivalent on this uprising. Murbarak is a brutal, evil person but the Muslim Brotherhood will be no better for the people of Egypt than he is.

The Shah was a horrible person, but do you think the Ayatollah have brought peace, prosperity, and democracy to Iran?

One thing a radical Egypt will do is further destabilize the region. Particularly the situation with Israel will grow very tense. I am no flag-waver for Israel, but I can't see how a new enemy will do anything but further harden the worst impulses of all participants.

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The Muslim Brotherhood is very much not in the driver's seat here. They're old and irrelevant, this is a moment for the young.

the Iranian revolution was also powered by 'the young', and the Mullahs were not in the drivers seat there either.

Though the return of Khomeini was definitely very much the catalyst.

They were young then.. then they became old and just as corrupt as those they replaced. The Muslim Brotherhood is the same generation, but now they're 30 years older.

Worth checking out: First Interactive Graphic Novel for iPad is about CIA’s involvement in Iran (1979) http://cognitocomics.com/operation-ajax/

The Iranian left also had no blueprint for moving forward. They were able to destabilize and oust the Shah, but they didn't know how to fill the power vacuum. The mosques did. They were not a marginalized fringe political wing, they were a cultural and religious force that quickly leveraged their position to move into the political sphere.

Thirty years later, the situation in Egypt is different. The secular centrists and left-wing have a clear model of how to fill the vacuum. Even if they didn't before, Tunisia has provided one for them. There is little opportunity for the Muslim Brotherhood to step in as strongmen willing to make order out of chaos.

1979 Iran and 2011 Egypt are simply materially incomparable situations. There is a possibility that the MB will cause headaches for an emergent democracy, but their ability to seize control and establish a theocratic dictatorship is minuscule, at best.

> their ability to seize control and establish a theocratic dictatorship is minuscule, at best.

Ok, that's a good thing then.

Is Iran financing them? Or do they have local support?

What are the relative proportions supporting these factions in the population?

I'd speculate that Iran isn't financing them, because I've never heard an allegation, they're Sunni, and they don't have a record of blowing up Israelis or Americans.

Not sure on the popularity thing. I'd say plurality support, off the cuff, based on recent history, but a big portion of that support is "anyone but Mubarak" moreso than "sharia law rules". All gut feelings on my part though.

Ok, thanks.

I've been researching them a bit further and it definitely seems they would command a majority of the votes at the moment so I really have no idea why people are so quick to write them off.

Agreed on the 'anyone but Mubarak', if this thing does not blow over Mubarak will be a very lucky man if he manages to even reside in Egypt, if he is forced out and does not flee abroad in time he's as good as dead.

Egypt: A spokesman for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood announced that the group is making five urgent demands which the Egyptian government should comply with in order to avert several crises, according to a 19 January posting on the Muslim Brotherhood website.

Muhammad Mursi said the group wants Cairo to revoke the state of emergency, dissolve the People’s Assembly and hold free and fair elections, amend the constitutional articles that led to vote rigging in Egypt’s last elections, hold presidential elections according to those amendments, and fire the current government and form a national unity government responsive to the Egyptian people’s demands.

http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/01/nightwatch-extract-egypt-...

This isn't really evidence one way or the other; its the sort of statement they could make in any event.

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