To no one’s surprise, a Muslim Brotherhood member has been elected president of Egypt, though the office is largely symbolic at this point.
Father Raymond de Souza says Egypt is likely headed for civil war. As it was in Algeria, it might be in Egypt, he says:
In the late 1980s, Algeria’s socialist one-party state began a gradual process of reform and democratization, provoked in part by economic hardship resulting from falling oil prices. Soon after other political parties were legalized, Islamist parties flourished, eventually winning a majority in 1990 local elections.
With the prospect of an Islamist victory, the government cancelled national elections, sparking a rebellion that in turn led to the quick imposition of military rule. A brutal civil war followed between the secular military rulers and the Islamist parties, with civilian atrocities widespread. In order to prevent an Islamist state, Algeria sacrificed democracy and many civil liberties besides. The civil war raged throughout the 1990s, with as many as 200,000 dead in a population of some 25 million people.
Egypt has a population of some 80 million, more than three times Algeria’s population in the 1990s. Proportionately, could we expect more than half a million dead in Egypt?
Here is the paradox of the Middle East:
Democracy brings extremism and loss of liberty. To fight against that extremism means the suspension of democracy and loss of liberty. And both paths are headed toward war.
Marcus Jay 
observer 
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IanH 
Aaron 
Alex Y 
We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.
America’s vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our Nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation’s security, and the calling of our time.
So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.
This is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary. Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities. And when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own. America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way. – George Woodrow Wilson Bush’s Second Epistle to the Americans on the Healing and Redeeming Power of Democracy and the American Mission to End All Evil and Tyranny Everywhere