Things are going from worse to Badie

[CG6468]

Uh-oh. Not good.

By Arnaud de Borchgrave

The Washington Times

6:40 p.m., Monday, April 11, 2011

Take the last two digits of the year in which you were born, then add the age you will be this year - and the result will be 111 for everyone born before 2000.

This year will also experience four unusual dates: 1/1/11, 1/11/11, 11/1/11/, 11/11/11.

October will have five Sundays, five Mondays and five Saturdays.

This happens only every 823 years. A geopolitical upheaval in Egypt sans war: every 59 years.

In Cairo, the latest conventional wisdom sees a groundswell of Islamist fundamentalism cloaked in moderate colors moving adroitly center stage. Following elections in the fall, the Muslim Brotherhood is expected to deliver about 40 percent of the vote, possibly even a majority. Either way, it will change the geopolitical calculus for the world’s major players.

In Cairo, the street has spoken. Prudently, a majority of Egypt’s small class of billionaires are abroad. Some of the elder brothers of the Brotherhood are closer to Iran’s theocrats than they are to America’s democrats. Differences between Sunni and Shiite Islam are lacquered to exploit geopolitical opportunities, e.g., Iran and Hamas in Gaza, Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Behind Cairo’s political stage, says one ranking Egyptian on a private visit to Washington, Iran’s mullahs and Egypt’s Brothers are unobtrusively sidling up.

Four weeks ago, Turkish President Abdullah Gul, a former Islamist, flew to Cairo for a brief meeting with Gen. Hussein Tantawi, chairman of the military council ruling Egypt pending elections, followed by a two-hour huddle with Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie.

A meeting for a radical