Despite His Guest's Stunningly Accurate Predictions, Imus Thinks He Knows What Egyptians Really Want

Dr. Walid Phares, a Fox News Terrorism Expert, appeared on this program just one month ago to discuss his book The Coming Revolution. Had Imus dared to open it, he would have known what was about to happen in Egypt because Phares predicted it, with almost frightening accuracy, on page 304.
 
“I projected that we are going to see uprisings,” he informed Imus this morning. “In Egypt, we are going to be seeing the youth in the streets, and the Muslim Brotherhood trying to take over. The army will become the maker or breaker of the deal, and eventually there is going to be a big change in Egypt.”
 
The hoards of young people demonstrating in Cairo and other big Egyptian cities began last week as a movement of 80,000 people on Facebook, an unprecedented number in the Arab world, Phares noted. “Of course, when that happened, we had hundreds of thousands of people who joined in, calling for change,” he said.
 
More than anything, they want President Hosni Mubarak, a dictator who came to power in 1981, out, even though the United States, for all intents and purposes, likes him. “He is one of the authoritarian leaders in the region, and he’s not alone, who on the outside is really rendering services to the United States,” Phares said. On the inside, however, Mubarak’s priority is staying in power by means of suppression.
 
Not long ago, Mubarak tried unsuccessfully to push his son to succeed him, and the recent announcement that he would do so again ignited action on the part of Egyptians, who have yet to figure out what their country’s future will actually look like.
 
“The problem here is going to be who’s going to come to government later,” Phares said. Of primary concern to the U.S. and almost every country in the world is the Muslim Brotherhood, an almost 90-year old, organized, efficient network that was banned by Mubarak after multiple attempts to seize power in Egypt.
 
“If the Muslim Brotherhood is back into public life, and does not commit to the institutions of the republic, but they want to establish some sort of Taliban-like regime,” Phares said. “Then we have a serious problem.”
 
Many former members of the Muslim Brotherhood ended up becoming jihadists, most notably Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda’s number two in command after Osama Bin Laden. The de facto leader of the current uprising, Mohamed ElBaradei, has said he would include the Muslim Brotherhood in a coalition government in Egypt, mostly because he’s too weak not to, according to Phares.
 
“Those who really can stop the Muslim Brotherhood are the armed forces,” he said. “If Mubarak goes and ElBaradei comes, yes, you’re going to have the possibility that the Muslim Brotherhood are going to get more and more influence, because they are backed from the outside.” In Phares’s view, ElBaradei is “independent-minded” in that he “takes into consideration whatever he sees around him.”
 
Some young Egyptians told Phares ElBaradei is but an interim solution. As for who will be “the man,” as Imus put it, Phares hollered, “We don’t know!” and begged the organizers of the current demonstrations to come forward.
 
“Where is the Lech Walesa in the whole thing, or the Vaclav Havel?” he said, referring to the leaders of Poland’s and Czechoslovakia’s revolutions, respectively. He surmised the responsible parties are too scared to come forward at this juncture because of the country’s instability, and the possibility of retribution by the Muslim Brotherhood.
 
As for what will happen when the smoke clears, Phares was vague. “You’re going to have a long time where Egypt is going to move from one government to another government,” he said. “It’s not going to be stable anymore. That’s the price for not having an authoritarian leader.”
 
According to Phares, around 20 percent of the Egyptian protesters are militants who desire an Islamist state, and to wage war against Israel. But most people are marching because they want a multi-party political system, and lives that more closely resemble those of Americans.
 
Or, as Imus put it, they want to “smoke dope, watch porn, and go to McDonalds.”
 
(See also: Imus in the 1980s.)
 
-Julie Kanfer