Egypt's Chance To Lead

Next Sunday Lebanon will hold parliamentary elections in which a leading contender will be the militant Islamic movement Hezbollah, which has sponsored terrorism against Israel and the United States and defied a U.N. Security Council resolution ordering its disarmament. In July the Islamic group Hamas is expected to participate in Palestinian legislative elections even though it, too, has refused to disarm and last week violated its promise to temporarily cease attacks against Israel. In ways that are both dangerous and promising, two of the Middle East's most lethal Muslim organizations are teetering between the path of al Qaeda and that of democracy.

That is one reason why the evolving political reform of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is disappointing. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is the oldest and most prestigious Islamic movement in the Arab world and, unlike Hamas and Hezbollah, it has explicitly renounced violence. Its leaders say they have no desire to take power in Cairo this year; they ask only to be allowed to peacefully organize and compete for seats in parliament. Yet Mubarak's response has been the opposite of the Palestinians and Lebanese. Not only does the Muslim Brotherhood remain banned under the constitutional reform unveiled in Egypt this month, but the government has launched the biggest crackdown against the movement in years.

Since the end of March the Brotherhood has staged a series of peaceful protests in Cairo and other cities calling for greater political freedom. Two weeks ago it mounted demonstrations in 17 towns simultaneously, attracting a total of 70,000 supporters. In Lebanon, secular parties responded to a huge Hezbollah rally by organizing a larger one of their own. In Egypt, Mubarak's reply to the Brotherhood was to imprison more than 750 of its members, including one of its most senior leaders, Essam Erian.

Why suppress a peaceful Islamic movement while others in the region are allowed both ballots and weapons? Israel and many in the Bush administration argue, with good reason, that allowing Hamas and Hezbollah to have it both ways is risky and unsustainable. Yet if the Brotherhood, which has had a deep influence on Islamists around the region, were permitted to peacefully participate in a liberalizing Egyptian political system, the result could be a model for the pacification of fundamentalists. These movements will not, after all, simply disappear: In all three countries experts believe they have the support of 20 to 40 percent of the population, and maybe more.

Curiously, Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif acknowledged during a visit to Washington last week that his government is supporting and even facilitating Hamas's participation in the Palestinian elections. Of the Brotherhood, he says "they are looking for a way to get into the system. But look what they stood for for over 100 years. If they get into the system and somehow get into power, what will happen to democracy in Egypt?" Like Hamas, which it helped to found, the Brotherhood opposes peace with Israel, supports the Iraqi insurgency and believes Muslims should be ruled by sharia , or religious law.

The difference is that the Brotherhood, unlike Hamas, doesn't sponsor suicide bombings -- and it does not want to take power immediately. "At the moment we are not prepared to take over in Egypt," Ali Abdel Fattah, a leading Muslim Brotherhood organizer and spokesman, told me when I met him recently in Cairo. "We don't want to see the sudden collapse of this regime, because that is dangerous. We know the international community needs stability in Egypt. So we support gradual change toward freedom, step by step, provided those steps are real."

What would it take to integrate a peaceful Islamic party into Egypt's political system? For now Mubarak could achieve a breakthrough simply by lifting the emergency law that prevents the Brotherhood from holding peaceful meetings and rallies, or publishing newspapers. The next step would be to open talks with the group -- like those the government party recently held with the official opposition -- and discuss the terms under which it could be allowed to register as a political party and participate in future elections. In exchange for a genuine, if gradual, transition to democracy, the Islamists could be required to formally pledge allegiance to a constitutional system in which any elected government would be bound to observe a charter of civil and human rights and yield power when defeated at the polls.

In this way, as in others, Egypt has the opportunity to lead the Arab world toward genuine democracy, as President Bush has urged it to do. By refusing to take up the challenge, Mubarak makes a successful transition less likely -- not only for his country, but also for its neighbors.