From what I’m hearing, the threat from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood isn’t as great, right now, as we think. Mubarak’s regime was successful in culling the most extreme members from that group. If there is going to be a Islamic revolution in Egypt it will probably come from an outside group (Hamas, Martyr’s Brigade, Al Qaeda, etc).
The economic challenges in Egypt are tremendous and probabilty of a “second revolution” is very high. Since the end of WWII the Sadat/Mubarak regimes have made some economic progress in Egypt, but it was all based on tourism and cronyism. There is very little economic upside for next 10 years in Egypt. They will soon become an oil importing nation and they are unable to feed their growing population. Mubarak is leaving Egypt at a point in time where their economy is about as good as it can get. If he stayed on things would have gotten worse. Without him things will incdeed get worse and in 10 years Mubarak’s reign will be seen as ‘the good, old days’.
IRAN