Egypt: Getting Trains To Run On Time?

Will democratic elections neuter radical Islam? That's the hopeful prediction of Colgate prof and Egypt scholar Bruce Rutherford, writing in the other CSM. His argument: Muslim Brotherhood candidates who won office in Egypt will have to deliver on workaday promises in order to be re-elected, which will dull their radical edge.

Candidates of the Brotherhood -- the original Islamofascist organization of the modern era -- did win on simple, local platforms of school reform, cleaning up government, aid to farmers, etc. They say they're for free speech and other decidedly foreign concepts to radical Islamists. And they want to be re-elected.

And Mussolini wanted the trains to run on time.

Egypt, as Rutherford points out, continues its campaign against Coptic Christians, who have lived in relative peace there since the time of Christ -- until the new era of Islamic extremism. Moderate Muslims face similar difficulties. Terror and assassination lurk in the misty future.

It's pretty predictable how it will come down: Once it has a legislative base, the Brotherhood will swing fascist, and those legislators who have become comfortable in safe, more moderate positions, will be left behind. Often permanently left behind.

And the Brotherhood will try to use Democracy to shut Democracy down.