Egypt’s people’s revolution has reached its next phase of metamorphosis. The first stage of the revolution, like all popular spontaneous political revolutions, overthrew the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak. The current phase seeks to remove the interim military head of state, Field Marshal Mohammed Tantawi, and his military helmsmen from power and return the country to a fully civilian (Islamist) leadership. While it is immediately not clear what the outcome of the deadly clashes will be, be it a wholesale military dictatorship, or a collapse of the Tantawi regime and a vote electing an Islamist dominated parliament, there is now a high risk the scheduled 28 November parliamentary polls may be postponed. The renewed protests in Egypt, coming on the heels of a renewed focus on Syria, puts the US and its European allies (including Israel) in a quandary. If the West supports the protestors and Tantawi is toppled, an Islamist government is surely to emerge as has happened in Tunisia. However, if the West supports the Egyptian military in crushing the peoples revolution, Al Qaeda, which is now led by an Egyptian, will point to western backing of Tantawi as evidence that the US, Europe and Israel do not want the peoples of the Middle East to ever be free of dictatorships. Furthermore, if the West were to back Tantawi fearing an Islamist government, it would be harder to take a stronger consistent line against Syria. In short, expect a politically rough few weeks ahead for Egypt. If the November 28th polls proceed as planned (an increasingly unlikely prospect), the new Muslim Brotherhood dominated parliament will inevitably challenge the Tantawi regime and force a showdown between Egypt’s secular moderate Islamists, and Islamists. Egypt’s stock market and currency are likely to experience wild trading swings over the next couple of weeks.

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