Of course, at the time, moderates were actually advising Khomeini. The reconstituted National Front was invovled in the Islamic revolution, as well as the hardline leftovers from Tudeh and other Marxist groups and a miscellany of secularist student groups. The problem is that Khomeini's militias had guns, and none of the other groups did.

It wasn't until 1981, when Khomeini was finally secure in having a monopoly on the use of force, that he purged every secular element involved in the Islamic revolution. This is not to say that a more moderate Iranian government would have been more amenable to American interests than the present one (the Marxists were Soviet-affiliated and the Nat'l Front hated us for thirty years of SAVAK) but rather than it's not untrue, in 1979, that Khomeini was being advised by moderates.

This is, of course, the long way around to arguing the main difference between Iran and Egypt. In Iran, Islamists had a post-revolutionary monopoly on the use of force, which they then used to purge their competitors. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood appears not to have trained paramilitaries, and the army is not unambiguously supporting the current regime.

Consequently, if the military facilitates a transition, we're more likely to end up with something like Turkey or Honduras: a country where illiberal military prerogatives are enshrined in the Constitution, but where those prerogatives operate in parallel to a functioning civil society. Because this is an Islamic society, that civil society will of course include Islamists, but I don't see a clear route to one-party consolidation in Egypt, as happened in Iran (with the Khomeinists) or Russia (with the Bolsheviks.)

Tyhmaplanet, that sort of Mad Libs Bircherism has no more place in the National Review of the 21st century than its predecessor did in the 20th. There are plenty of moderate Muslims. They may not be a majority in many places, but they do, in fact, exist. Are the Muslim soldiers that have fought and died for our country merely carrying out a sophisticated ruse?

As to Egypt: the Muslim Brotherhood may win in whatever elections follow the Mubarak government. But not to put too fine a point on it, even if they win, the Egyptian military will still have all the guns. I cannot imagine a situation where, if the army remains neutral until Mubarak is deposed, the military will lose its effective monopoly on the use of force.

You might also note that this has gone too far to go back. Tahrir Square is a problem which, to an army with no moral compunctions about doing so, be solved with overwhelming force. It's people with guns killing and arresting people without. But instead, Mubarak appears to have called up thugs with baseball bats. This indicates to me that the military is politely declining his orders.

A dictator without an army is not a dictator. If Mubarak, or his designated successor, remains, he will be irrevocably compromised. The government that follows will likely be hostile to the United States. That's a pity. Even if intermittently Islamist, it will probably be better for Egyptians. That's good.

Given the choice between our interests and a potentially failed Egyptian democracy, we might reasonably choose either. However, short of a full-scale invasion to prop up a dictator that can't even control his own army, we don't have that choice. We can either lie about Mubarak's record (which involves ordering people to be raped to death) while trying to prop him up or we can try to get the people with guns to facilitate a possible transition to a democracy.

@ Andreas - please define "moderate muslim"

A) If your meaning of moderate is anything like my there are too many indications that moderate muslims are far too rare.

B) Your lame insults at posters pointing out this real, existential, threat amount to you holding your ears and crying "nana nana na na" when confronted with facts you find scary. How many times must we hear imam, after imam, after arab leader, after imam, after persian leader declare the heart-felt desire to crush our form of society and government before you stop calling lovers of freedom names for the terrible crime of taking muslim leaders at their word?

Your denial of plain facts regarding muslim goals is even more dangerous than the luke warm shoulder shrugging of the so-called moderate muslims.