EGYPT.

Wow, I picked a bad few days to go out of town. There are so many darn articles on Obama's speech in Egypt and on democracy in Egypt I can barely think straight.

First and foremost, here is the transcript of the speech. There are many many things I liked about the speech, but in the interest of time, I will recount them at a later time after I have caught up very briefly on all the great articles written while I was gone.

Marc Lynch's initial analysis of the speech.

The speech led to a flurry of articles on why Obama should NOT give up on democracy promotion in the Arab world, especially in Egypt. For those who were angry he chose Egypt because of its lack of democracy, this flurry might give them reason to pause because it seems to have brought democracy back on the agenda, if it was ever gone.

There has been a debate raging on whether democracy promotion should be part of foreign policy. And, if in fact it should, how to do it - direct funding of democracy groups, or through more indirect paths such as economic development. Egyptian activists and citizens seem to think it should be a huge part of our foreign policy - Ayman Nour and Saad Eddin Ibrahim to name just two of the most active and well known political opposition leaders.

Important to note:
- The US government recently stopped funding civil society organizations that the Egyptian government does not recognize (bad)
- The US government (Gates) publicly stated that there will be no 'conditionality' clause on defense aid to Egypt (bad)
- The Bush admin., after advocating major democratic reform in Egypt, abandoned democracy promotion after Islamist parties (many were Islamic democratic parties, but that didn't matter to them...) won an overwhelming number of seats in parliament in 2005

Obama In Egypt: A Vision for Democracy Promotion , in World Politics Review by Brian Katulis and Michael Cohen.

Don't Give Up on Egypt, in Foreign Policy by POMED (Project on Middle East Democracy) peoples.

Michael Gerson on Ayman Nour in the Wash Post. (Ayman Nour is a leading political opposition figure in Egypt, he ran for President in 2005.)

Realism May Not Play in Cairo from NYTimes Week in Review section.

Variety of opinions from bloggers and activists in the region from the NYTimes oped page.

Ditching Democracy in Egypt? from MESH (Middle East Strategy at Harvard) by Scott Carpenter. (I learned via Marc Lynch that Carpenter is responding to this article by in Newsweek by Steven Cook article on why fiunding democracy programs in Egypt is not effective.)

I would love to read and write on this for days, maybe I will at some point, but for now I am going to move on to list a few other important developments and articles from the past few days.