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Was the Arab Spring a Victory for Extremism?
(Bloomberg) Jeffrey Goldberg - Just a few months ago, we were told that battalions of tweeting secularists were steering the revolution and that the people of Egypt did not want sharia, or Islamic law, to govern their lives. They simply wanted freedom. This was Selma on the Nile. A dozen years ago Mubarak told me, "My people expect a firm hand. If we don't lead strongly, they will turn to the mosque for leadership." It turns out Mubarak was right. The only thing standing between Egypt and the rise of fundamentalist Islam was Mubarak. The Muslim Brotherhood and its more radical cousins are, generally speaking, anti-Western, anti-Semitic, hostile to Christians in their midst, and have a view of women that most Westerners find abhorrent.