In yesterday’s post (link) I discussed how protesters face a tough problem in selecting leaders to represent them in negotiating the terms of the transition. It seems unlikely that the incumbent regime is going to vanish, and some bargaining between elements of the incumbent regime and representatives of the protest movement seems inevitable. Thus, leader selection is a problem that the protesters will probably have to solve and perhaps one they will have to solve very quickly. At the moment, it seems that the incumbents are trying to force their own solution to the problem by selectively inviting certain opposition figures in for discussion.
On this, a line from NY Times columnist Ross Douthat’s article today (link) struck me. Douthat writes on the Obama administration’s approach to Egypt, proposing that “Obama might have done more to champion human rights and democracy in Egypt before the current crisis broke out, by leavening his Kissinger impression with a touch of Reaganite idealism. But there isn’t much more the administration can do now, because there isn’t any evidence that the Egyptian protesters are ready to actually take power. [emphasis added]” Certainly this is an image of the protest movement that the Egyptian incumbent regime favors. It reveals more about how the leadership problem is hurting the protesters.
