Egypt is in vogue among many foreign observers and analysts. The Economist has covered developments in the country in more than ten issues in 2009 alone. The American Interest published a long study on the country in autumn 2008 (see Michelle Dunne, "A Post-Pharaonic Egypt", The American Interest, September-October 2008). The International Crisis Group has tackled "potential disruptions" in the country in a number of its reports. The United States House of Representatives committee on international relations has since 2006 devoted several hearings and testimonies to conditions there. The west's policy-journals and think-tanks frequently focus on Egypt (see, for example, Aladdin Elaasar, "Is Egypt Stable?", Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2009). The unlikeliest sources call Egypt "the country to watch".

Tarek Osman is a writer and a merchant banker

Among Tarek Osman's articles in openDemocracy:

"Egypt's phantom messiah" (12 July 2006)

"Mahfouz's grave, Arab liberalism's deathbed" (23 November 2006)

"Arab Christians: a lost modernity" (31 August 2007)

"Nasser's complex legacy" (15 January 2008)

"Egypt: the surreal painting" (14 May 2008)

"Youssef Chahine, the life-world of film" (29 July 2008)

"China and the Olympics: a view from Egypt" (7 August 2008)

"Egypt's dilemma: Gaza and beyond" (12 January 2009)

"Democracy-support and the Arab world: after the fall" (17 March 2009)

"The Islamic world, the United States, democracy: response to Shadi Hamid" (15 May 2009)All this is in its way natural and appropriate: Egypt is indeed a major Arab country that in many ways remains pivotal to the future of its region. It is one of the key states in the middle-east's political processes (from the Arab-Israeli conflict to the crisis over Iran). The country is also an increasingly important economic player in the region; the second largest market (after Saudi Arabia), and the base for some of the region's most innovative companies (the most successful telecoms operator, construction conglomerate, investment bank, and private-equity firm).

At heart, however, the impulse for such attention is fear as much as positive engagement on such grounds: even a sense of peril about the possibility of social disruption and / or political chaos in this land of 82 million people.

An explosion in Egypt would indeed shake the region and the world. The country is the birthplace of modern militant Islamism as well as the driving force of Arab nationalism; it still has the momentum to drive great political movements across the region - the inspiring (the modern Arabic cultural renaissance between the 1920s and the 1960s), the exhausted (Arab nationalism) and the regressive (militant Islamism) alike. Egypt is, after all, also a "spillover" country: its tremors pulsate far and wide.

This importance and potential notwithstanding, the international coverage of Egypt has become rather formulaic. A surprising number of reports repeat the same formula. They start by highlighting the dire socio-economic situation of everyday Egyptians; go on to lament the regime's aloof and passive stance; portray the entire society as moribund, weighed down by its burdens and trapped in anger and despair; refer to others' contribution to Egypt's failures (from the United States's misguided policies to Iran's meddling); and conclude by speculating whether Gamal Mubarak (son of the president, Hosni Mubarak) will succeed to the leadership or whether an army general will seize power and terminate the long Mubarak era.

This standard formula, with its myriad of outlets, contains elements of reality (it could hardly be otherwise). But overall there are enough missing or skewed elements as to suggest the need for a more complex picture.

The three gaps

The first misunderstanding is about stasis in Egyptian society. The picture of this society as stagnant misses the fact that throughout the 2000s, it has undergone major changes (see "Egypt: the surreal painting", 14 May 2008).

For example, the private sector in Egypt now employs more Egyptians than the public sector. That significant shift coincides with the regime's subtle but consistent lifting of the social safety-net that Egyptians have enjoyed since the 1960s. This means that staple-food prices are increasing (which provoked serious demonstrations and riots in early 2008); healthcare is effectively becoming privatised; the government's guarantee to create job opportunities for new graduates is all but null; and the dominant operating mode of the entire economy is unmistakably capitalist.

Many observers highlight the corruption and vast income differentials that are among the by-products of these changes. As important, however, is the emergence as a result of a new and broad-based class of engaged economic agents who are participating in and have stakes in the country's economic system. These businesspeople are economically independent of the government's and the public-sector's machinations, and this encourages a much more assertive and outspoken attitude towards the elements holding the country back.

It is common for observers to hail new media and the internet, satellite TV channels, and greater openness to the outside world as central to the wave of political activism that Egypt has witnessed since 2003-04 (involving the active professional syndicates, the effervescent universities, and a multitude of bloggers). All true, but arguably more fundamental is the factor of self-assurance that comes from being economically independent.

The spreading realisation among many young Egyptians that they will never work for the government or the public sector - because these are no longer the main provider in Egyptian society - has been the  trigger of the new activism. That trend is now irreversible - and is gaining momentum. One of the most important dynamics in Egypt today is how (no longer if) the private sector and its agents will transform their economic power into political power.

The second misunderstanding is that the Egyptian regime is passive, reflexive, and reliant on continually blaming others. In fact, the Egyptian regime's opposition to Iran, Hizbollah, and other "radical" players in the region is part of a coherent foreign-policy doctrine that sees Egypt as a pillar of a Pax Americana in the middle east. This view has guided Egyptian foreign policy since the later 1970s. Its shape and future, and its ability to meet Egypt's security interests, are beyond the scope of this article; but the point is that the regime is hardly passive.

The regime's activism is even clearer internally. Again, many analysts derive from the view that President Hosni Mubarak (now 81 years old) is increasingly elderly and detached the conclusion that the regime's pace as a whole has become slow and sluggish. This view too is wrong.

Since the early 2000s, and especially after the installation of the 2004 government, the president's son Gamal Mubarak and an elite of liberal capitalists have acquired great influence over decision-making in a number of areas. There has, in effect, been an element of rejuvenation - reflected both in some of the major economic changes referred to above, and in more friction with the regime's classic as well as new challengers (the Muslim Brotherhood, but also more assertive women's groups and young bloggers). This internal regeneration complements and to a degree attempts to offset the challenge from the new class of economic agents outside the regime.

The third misunderstanding is the depiction of young Egyptians (and almost 70% of the population is under 30 years old) as angry, frustrated, disillusioned, and increasingly violent. Here, what observers ignore is their impressive and increasing cultural creativity, social interest and political engagement.

There are also areas where the new Egyptian capitalism is meeting young people's creativity and thirst for change. For example, three investment funds have been launched in 2009 that focus solely on Egypt's poorest and long-ignored region, Al-Saeed; all are managed by 30-something young Egyptians who have returned to the country from New York and London. There is a fusion here of personal incentive and social improvement that is a potential source of development and progress.

The military and Islamism

The fourth fallacy concerns Islamism. There is a recurring tendency among analysts who consider the prospects for post-(Hosni) Mubarak Egypt to focus on the likelihood of Egypt's next leader being Gamal Mubarak or an army general, or whether political Islam will be able to wrest control from the regime. The question is valid. But the line of thinking it reflects is somewhat tired, and often fails to grasp the subtleties of the forces it is referring to.

The dominant view of the military establishment in Egypt tends to invoke the potentiality of "a general becoming Egypt's next president" without engaging with the complicated relationship between the regime and the military establishment (as did, for example, Robert Satloff's study of The Army and Politics in Mubarak's Egypt [Washington Institute of Near East Policy, 1988]).

In similar vein, the analysis of Islamism in today's Egypt can simplify the role of the Muslim Brotherhood - which is not (as is often stated) the most important or pervasive Islamic force in the country. This description more accurately defines the Salafist movements.

Salafists, who regard early pious Muslims and their communities as exemplary models, command major followings on the Egyptian "street". They are not politically active, and that is why they are tolerated (and sometimes encouraged) by the regime; that is also why they do not feature in news-bulletins or reports on the country. Their influence, however, is many times more than that of organised political Islam.

Salafist thinking, which has been expanding and proliferating in Egypt for more than three decades, is based on a religious view of life; a strict and highly conservative social code; and inherently advances an Islamist foreign policy. The accumulating influence of this significant Salafist influence on Egyptian society could be to make many young Egyptians more anti-secular, anti-liberal, and anti-west. After three decades of domestic and foreign efforts to align the country with the United States and the west, including around $100 billion of American (and western) investment in and aid to Egypt, this outcome would be a colossal policy failure. The Salafi phenomenon receives far less attention than it deserves.

The plethora of new media has put Egypt under the spotlight. But the speed with which this media's clicks cover the country allow for too little close study and critical observation. Such hurried coverage risks failing to detect the real trends that are shaping tomorrow's Egypt.

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Also in openDemocracy on the Arab world in 2009:

• Paul Rogers, "Gaza: hope after attack" (1 January 2009)
• Ghassan Khatib, "Gaza: outlines of an endgame" (6 January 2009
• Avi Shlaim, "Israel and Gaza: rhetoric and reality" (7 January 2009)
• Paul Rogers, "Gaza: the Israel-United States connection" (7 January 2009)
• Paul Rogers, "Gaza: the wider war" (13 January 2009)
• Paul Rogers, "After Gaza: Israel's last chance" (17 January 2009)
• Paul Rogers, "Gaza: the war after the war" (22 January 2009)
• Tarek Osman, "Egypt's dilemma: Gaza and beyond" (12 January 2009)
• Khaled Hroub, "Hamas after the Gaza war" (15 January 2009)
• Martin Shaw, "Israel's politics of war" (20 January 2009)
• Conor Gearty, "Israel, Gaza and international law" (21 January 2009)
• Mustafa Kibaroglu, "Turkey-Israel relations after Gaza" (26 January 2009)
• Sadegh Zibakalam, "Iran and the Gaza war" (26 January 2009)
• Khaled Hroub, "The ‘Arab system' after Gaza" (27 January 2009)
• Hugo Slim, "NGOs in Gaza: humanitarianism vs politics" (30 January 2009)
• Lucy Nusseibeh, "The four lessons of Gaza" (4 February 2009)
• Martin Shaw, "Uses of genocide: Kenya, Georgia, Israel, Sri Lanka" (9 February 2009)
• Zaid Al-Ali, "Lebanon: chronicles of an attempted suicide" (20 May 2009)
• Robert G Rabil, "Lebanon at the crossroads" (5 June 2009)
• Hazem Sagheh, "Arabs and the Iranian upheaval" (9 July 2009)
• Akiva Eldar, "Iran, the Arabs and Israel: the domino-effect" (27 July 2009)
• Hazem Sagheh, "Israeli settlement, Arab movement" (28 July 2009)
• Tony Klug, "Israel-Palestine: a man, a plan, and an outcome" (29 July 2009)

A group of distinguished experts has sent a letter to President Barack Obama urging him to put democratic reform at the heart of the United States's engagement with Arab regimes and publics. The letter - convened by the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID) and the Project on Middle East Democracy (Pomed), and published on 10 March 2009 - is founded on the acknowledgment that the US's relationship with the Muslim world has been troubled, and elaborates the case that out of the misjudgments of the George W Bush years a new and principled American approach to support for democracy and human rights can arise. 

The document is sincere and timely. It echoes concerns shared by those who see the need for a rethinking of the whole project of "democracy promotion" as it has evolved since the 1990s, such as several contributors to the openDemocracy/International IDEA debate on the topic. But it also suffers from two flaws, respectively of framing and substance, which damage its credibility.

The door to difference

The first is confusion about whether the "target" of the letter is the Arab world, the Muslim world, or the middle east - which of course are far from the same thing (many Arabs are not Muslims, most Muslims are not Arabs and do not live in the middle east, many of the middle east's people are neither Arabs nor Muslims). At various points the letter's imaginative projection seems to cross from one category to another.

This matters, because any democracy project worth the name must be attentive to key distinctions and diversities - in this case, both between the "Arab world" and the "Muslim world" and within each of these realities. This is true to the extent that it is at least doubtful that anything called the "relationship between the United States and the Muslim world" can even be said to exist. After all, this "world" shares no single political condition, and defies any homogenising tendency.

Each Muslim country has a unique history and attributes that have shaped its connection with the outside world (including America) and cannot be assimilated to a single template. Turkey, for example, is formally an ally of Washington while acquiring a gradually more assertive distance (symbolised by its refusal to join the invasion of Iraq); Iran remains a bitter adversary of and a major foreign-policy challenge to the US; Iraq is recovering from the enormous destruction of US-led invasion and war, which followed earlier intense periods of entanglement with the US; Pakistan is another nominal ally, but its multiple crises put it increasingly at odds with a country many of its people view with deep suspicion; Indonesia is another ally, but also a state whose political path and public opinion seem ever less amenable to the kind of influence the US wielded in the past. Moreover, there are millions of transnational or diaspora Muslims who - through satellite channels, the internet, and remittances - are agents in developing Muslim and national identities.

The same degree of internal variety characterises the "Arab world", notwithstanding its greater geographical coherence (though, again, there are huge numbers of transnational and diaspora Arabs, making this a global reality too).  The Gulf is vastly different from the Maghreb; the Levant has its own promises and perils; Sudan occupies a unique position in its membership of yet marginality to the rest of the Arab world; and Egypt is a world to itself.

The differences and distinctions matter: for their own sake, for proper understanding by outsiders, for policy that is intended to help not harm to be got right, and for the tragedies and enmities of past years to be overcome rather than repeated. The danger of overlooking them - even if unintentional and in the interest of focusing the message - is that what is framed as a new beginning could begin to resemble a finessing of the old, where America appears interested primarily in itself rather than the ostensible subjects of its concern.

The impossible partner

The second flaw in the letter is the content of the recommendations to President Obama.

The letter advises the new president that the US should consistently promote democracy in the Arab world; and (while acknowledging that "many Islamists advocate illiberal policies") highlights the case-studies of successful mild-Islamic rule in Turkey and increasing political participation of Islamic parties in Morocco and Indonesia to assuage the US's presumed trepidations about engaging with Islamists.Tarek Osman is a writer and a merchant banker

Also by Tarek Osman in openDemocracy:

"Egypt's phantom messiah" (12 July 2006)

"Mahfouz's grave, Arab liberalism's deathbed" (23 November 2006)

"Arab Christians: a lost modernity" (31 August 2007)

"Nasser's complex legacy" (15 January 2008)

"Egypt: the surreal painting" (14 May 2008)

"Youssef Chahine, the life-world of film" (29 July 2008)

China and the Olympics: a view from Egypt (7 August 2008)

The conclusion here may be politically sound, but it is intellectually flawed. It is true, as the letter states, that currents of political Islam form "the largest opposition groups" in the middle east. It is not true, however, that the US's main issues with political Islam concern the latter's presumed illiberalism. Saudi Arabia, the US's key Arab ally for the past six decades, is hardly a beacon of liberalism. The real predicament is that political Islam is on a clashing path with US foreign policy in the Arab world - for two reasons.

The first is, in a word (though one that gets only a single mention in the letter), Israel. A key pillar of the Pax Americana in the Arab world (and the wider middle east) is guaranteeing Israel's security. Political Islam sees Israel as the enemy; opposing the "Zionist project in our lands" is - and will continue to be - a foundation of the legitimacy of any political movement basing its mandate on Islam (whether it's the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Harakat al-Tahreer in Algeria, the National Front in Sudan, the mullahs in Iran, Hamas in Palestine, or Hizbollah in Lebanon).

There are two "solutions" to this dilemma: either Israel decides to end its occupation of all Palestinian land (which according to most political Islam's currents is the land occupied in the 1948, not the 1967, war); or the US abandons its guarantee of Israel's security. Since both "solutions" are inconceivable, political Islam will continue to see the US on a scale ranging from "the enemy's backer" to the "great satan".

The letter describes cases of political Islam's participation in Turkey, Indonesia and Morocco as having "moderated Islamist parties and enhanced their commitment to democratic norms". The qualification that needs to be made here is in part (again) that the US's problem with political Islam is not about enhancing its commitment to democracy; but it is also that the three examples cited are not representative of political Islam in the Arab world.

Turkey is not part of the Arab world; it has good relations with Israel (notwithstanding its strong condemnation of the assault on Gaza); its Islamists do not believe they are ideologically compelled to wage jihad against Israel; and (crucially) Turkey's military is vehemently secular - acting as a subtle but potent watchdog over the Islamists. Indonesia's Islamists too have other things than Israel on their mind. And Morocco's Islamists who joined the government were also accepting a role in a grand political game that is controlled by the palace (an American ally). Throughout the Arab world, however, all political Islamic movements without exception oppose (sometimes violently) the regimes deemed friends of America; they cannot be conscripted into this argument for engagement in the interests of a renewed policy of democracy support.

The infinite enemy

This point leads to the second reason why political Islam is on a clashing path with the US's foreign policy in the middle east. The region's Pax Americana aims - either in its softer Wilsonian guise or its brutal-realist Kissingeresque one - to "stabilise the region". Such stabilisation, pursued through armed aggression (as in the Iraq adventure) or negotiations (as in the Oslo/Camp David/roadmap/Quartet engagements) is designed to yield a "settlement" in the middle east. But political Islam has another cause: to wage the "struggle" against Israel, and in so doing to reverse the Islamic world's (and for many adherents the Arab world's) historical descent.

Many political trends in the Arab world take a long-term view with regard to the Arab-Israeli dilemma; they are against settling it at a time of what a leading Egyptian commentator calls "national thrashing". Arab nationalists too espouse this view. But political Islam's opposition is not time-bound but theological: it sees "settling" as a sin, and long-term jihad until "all our rights are regained" (as the Hamas leader Khaled Meshal says) is divinely ordained. Political Islam has higher ambitions than securing its rule or the accession of political heirs; they intend to (to cite President Bush's words in a different context) "stay the course", and will not buy into any Pax Americana for the middle east.

The liberal dilemma

What of the political Islamists' opponents in the Arab world, who are so often the principal reference-point of American democracy support: political liberals?  The letter claims that promoting democracy in the Arab world will "give liberal and secular forces in the region a chance to establish themselves..". The contrary will happen.

The Arab street is in the midst of a wave of religiosity, dominated by political Islamism. Even the liberal Arab forces led by highly respected public figures, such as the Egyptian Liberal Movement formerly headed by Aziz Siddiqi, have negligible popular support. In the parliamentary election of 2005, Egyptian liberals - led by the "father of Egyptian industry" and arguably one of the most respected politicians in Egypt in the last fifty years - failed to secure a single seat; in the same election, the Muslim Brotherhood (despite "interventions" by the government designed to avoid this outcome) secured eighty-eight seats.

The last thing Arab liberals need is to be labelled America's poodles; that would trounce them. It is interesting that despite his record of advocating human rights in Egypt, and some excellent socio-economic work, Saad Eddin Ibrahim found little support from the Egyptian street during his ordeal with the Egyptian regime throughout the 2000s. In the eyes of millions he was regarded as betaa El American (a man of the Americans). In another example of this trend, limited donations from western foundations to an Egyptian human-rights centre discredited in the eyes of many Egyptians - despite very courageous work it had done over the past few years.

The modest future

The above considerations compel the question: should the United States refrain from promoting democracy in the middle east at all? The answer has to be yes, in the sense that it would be a mistake for America to position itself as a direct player in a grand project of political transformation; America's support for Israel will continue to cast its shadow on America's relationship to any other political force in the region; the failure to understand the dynamics of political Islam will guarantee further problems and reversals.

But this is not the end of the story. For the US can in principle adopt another approach, one that utilises the benefits of what Joseph Nye calls "soft power" to achieve long-term goals of benefit to both sides which do not have to be clothed in the language of democracy promotion. The election of President Obama himself is emblematic here, for it has done more to boost Arab liberals than eight years of George W Bush. Ibrahim Eissa, perhaps Egypt's most popular journalist (especially among the Cairene and Alexandrian middle class, and young people) wrote of why such a "giant step" can happen in America and not in Egypt; it was his first article in years that acclaimed American values.

If this historic event were followed by genuine efforts to change the emphasis of American intervention in the region, there would at least be the possibility of repairing some of the damage of the 2000s. The measures that could make a difference include ending all torture and rendition programmes that saw America act as a thuggish power; increasing foreign direct investment in the Arab world, and creating jobs where talent gets rewarded, promoted, and enriched; investing greatly in education via academic scholarships to young and bright Arab students, but also supporting projects in the struggling concentrations of poverty and deprivation. All this and more would remind the Arabs that America stands for much more than its backing for Israel.

There are reasons both of principle and practicality why the United States cannot avoid entanglement in the Arab world (see Patrick Tyler, A World of Trouble: The White House and the Middle East [Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2008]). The letter to President Obama is admirable in calling for a policy grounded on the principle of consistent support for democracy and human rights; but the signatories of the letter might reflect on the difficulty (if not the impossibility) of the United States ever operating to such a high standard. 

If the logic of this case is that the project of democracy support as such has reached its limit, it is also that other possibilities for progressive external agency remain. There are, after all, other players in the region apart from the United States; most evidently the European Union, which is less compromised by the polarisation of the 2000s and has its own "soft power" way of doing things that could win results. At the same time, America's very definition in Arab eyes can act for good as well as ill: even if the real popular forces on the Arabic street are no friends of the US, an intellectually curious and internationally oriented new president in the White House - and one with familial links to the Muslim (if not Arab) world - might yet help shift this load.

The experience of United States involvement in the Arab world, and its often ill-fated, one-sided and half-hearted efforts at democracy support, should provoke more caution than confidence about the future. The reward of bad ideas is failed policies. Any project that now puts democracy in the Arab or Muslim world at its heart will need to be mindful of what has gone before; based on sound ideas; knowledgeable about the ideologies, motives, and incentives of the people it is designed to aid; and humble in realising the limitations of what its power can do. In a word, don't give us democracy; just respect and seduce us, please.