As it is, I believe that the MB have discredited themselves. One year was enough for people to see how incompetent they were. Of course they will always have followers - after 70 years of Communist brutality there are still people in Russia who carry banners praising Stalin and asking for a return to one-party rule by the CPSU. But we didn't really want to give the MB 70 years to totally screw up Egypt, did we?

No, I say that the army is doing the right thing, just like it has helped keep the Turkish state secular. And on that note, I think that when the religion in question is Islam, in the present climate there is a heightened need for secularism. In Europe, it doesn't matter that there are Christian parties because they aren't going out saying that non-Christians should be burned for their beliefs. In the Muslim world, there is a serious problem with a significant violent minority, and anything that encourages that minority needs to be avoided. Maybe 200 years from now Muslim parties in Egypt will be like Christian parties in Europe, but we're a LONG way from that.

As for Erdogan, well, perhaps I exaggerated a bit, but it's the same story to a lesser degree in my opinion. The dictatorial tendencies come from a confessional conviction that God has appointed him and that he has the answers.