No end of mideast woes - "reform" in Egypt

Haaretz - Israel News: "Some 689 people, ranging from Islamists to Communists and including 30 lawmakers, signed a petition Saturday in the name of The Popular Campaign for Reforms, an umbrella group formed last month to try to amend Egypt's constitution to limit a president to holding two terms only."

Hosni Mubarak, 76, has led Egypt since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. His current six-year term of office has one year left. In a setup that most Western politicians can only envy, Mubarak stays in office via referenda where the people only get to vote yes or no, no messy multicandidate squabbles. The "reformers" may be premature in that Mubarak has not said whether he will seek another term or hand the government to his son Gamal, 41.

Democracy advocates no doubt will welcome this initiative to make Egypt's government look more "normal." Those more concerned with what governments do that how they look must take a slightly jaundiced view. Mubarak has kept the peace with Israel, for which the US subsidizes Egypt to the tune of several billion dollars per year, but he leaves the religious radicals on a long leash and takes little interest in their attacks on Coptic Christians. The Copts were once the predominant religion in Egypt, before the Muslims invaded. The "reformers" include such broadminided and tolerant folks as the Muslim Brotherhood and the communists. Not much to choose from on grounds of religious toleration or other liberal values. Maybe the West is better off with the status quo for as long as it can last.