At least 24 people have been killed and more than 200 wounded in the worst violence since Egypt’s former President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February.
Clashes broke out after a protest in Cairo against an attack on a church in Aswan province last week which Coptic Christians blame on Muslim radicals.
Egyptian TV showed protesters clashing with security forces as army vehicles burned outside the state TV building.
I told you so: here, here, here, here, here, here.
I would not give anyone odds that the Arab Spring will end in anything that we would define as democracy. The best we can hope for is that the Arab world will become less dangerous to us.
UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds HOW’S THAT “ARAB SPRING” WORKING OUT?
UPDATE 2: Posted at The Volokh Conspiracy
Those who saw the crowds in Tahrir Square followed by the fall of Mubarak as the beginning of a Democratic Egypt were engaged in wishful thinking. The same sort of magical thinking that made a Messiah out of a charismatic Chicago pol, or who view the Wall Street protesters are representatives of 99% of the American people. I wrote about it numerous times and the outcome was drearily predictable. Egypt has no history of democracy. It has a poor, largely illiterate population most of whom are faithful adherents of Islam whose current central tenant is destruction of the Jews. Working with the ingredients in that country, the best … the very best … outcome would be a benevolent dictatorship, an Egyptian Franco, that is not a threat to its neighbors and who will create a large educated middle class over several generations.
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