Last months WNP carried an article on current affairs in Egypt. This week's edition of Newsweek has an article speculating of what will happen in Egypt when President Mubarak steps downs or dies. Mubarak's son, Gamal, has been groomed to succeed but most accounts give him very little grass roots support. Dissidents have been jailed or silenced as has anyone who has shown the will or ability to be a counter to the current government. Grass roots support is probably on the side of the Muslim Brotherhood, which won a number of seats in Parliament last fall. Here is one paragraph from the Newsweek article:
 

"Ultimately, of course, Egypt is Egypt, where the model of the pharaohs' dynastic rule goes back 5,000 years. The machine is getting ready to put Gamal in power if Hosni can ever be persuaded to give up his throne. Yet Gamal, like most young pharaohs, has been guarded by the palace priests for so long that he may have very little idea how the Egyptian people live or act or think. His entourage is a nomenklatura of consumerism, comfortable in and with the West, but deeply unpopular on the street. His National Democratic Party (NDP) is a tired machine bereft of ideas that bases its power on thuggish coercion and shameless patronage. A party ought to have structured cadres, training, discipline, loyalty and a good feel for the grass roots, says American researcher Joshua Stacher: "The NDP is as legal as it gets, and the Muslim Brotherhood is about as illegal as it gets, but the NDP has none of these things and the Muslim Brothers have all these things."
 

Egypt is the largest Arab nation and has a large standing army. It is a key American ally in the region and any change would have a serious impact on United States policy. Because it has backed Mubarak's government it could find its influence marginalized should a fundamentalist regime take control. It could be Iran 1979 all over again.