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Ishaan Tharoor provides a brief history of Russia's intervention in Syria and its role in the Middle East since 1950. This does not mention the Dulles period under Eisenhower in U.S. politics when the U.S. engaged in the Cold War withdrew support for building the Aswan High Dam, thinking that the Soviet Union would not come up with support. The Soviet Union under Krushchev provided $1.2 billion at 2% interest in 1958 for building the Aswan High Dam- constructed from 1960-1970- which helped increase irrigation and crops in the Nile river region and reduced the damage from droughts and floods. Soon after the dam was built it provided about 50% of Egypt's electricity. This was the high point of Soviet Union's economic engagement, latter support was defined by military arms supplies and led to the Six Day War, and the economic stagnation of the economy under Nasser's successors from the military. The Soviet Union was actively engaged in Iran with a Russian and British zone in the country in 1907, soon after the flowering of an effort to write a democratic constitution 1900-1907 for Iran with the help of British intellectuals, similar to the failed effort of the Arab Spring today. In neighboring Afghanistan the Soviet Union fought a long war under Brezhnev, contributing to the unravelling of the economic structure of the Soviet Union before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The British were primarily focussed on protecting oil interests in Iran in the period 1900-1950, yet contacts with British civil society led to the first grasp of democratic constitution and processes in Iran during this period. The American intervention funnelling arms support to the Saddam regime in Iraq in a war Iraq initiated against Iran 1980-1988, marks a low point in American intervention similiar to the Russian intervention in Iran-Iraq-Syria today. It may also define some of the problems of today because of the length of that war, the entrenching of military in the government in Iran, suspicions of the U.S., and the possible sense of a need for nuclear weapons to prevent attacks on Iran, as Pakistan has done in its conflict with India, though this is rarely brought up in discussions. The American arms support intervention, led to a series of cascading conflicts since 1980 with the invasion of Kuwait by the Saddam regime in 1990, the destruction of Shia in the marshlands of Iraq after a flawed peace agreement, and the follow up to that conflict with George Bush's invasion of Iraq on grounds of WMD development in 2003 for the 2003-2011 Second Gulf War including the Surge. The arms support of the Saddam regime in the war it initiated against Iran, was policy designed under President Reagan 1980-1988 following the hostage crisis and the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979. The cascading crises with Iran and Iraq may not have led to this level of conflict and disruption, refugees and deaths in the Middle East, if American policymakers had heeded George Washington's advice during his presidency, that your enemy's enemy is not your friend when it comes to framing policy- for this reason Washington as president did not see it in the national interest to get involved in conflicts between Britain and France beginning in 1793, France having aided the American side against the British in the War of Independence. In the Proclamation of Neutrality, Philadelphia, April 22, 1993, he says: "Whereas it appears a state of war exists between Austria, Prussia, Sardinia, Great Britain and the United Netherlands, on the one part, and France on the other; and the duty and interest of the United States require, that they should with sincerity and good faith adopt and pursue a conduct friendly and impartial towards the belligerent powers.." And in a letter to Patrick Henry offering him the position of Secretary of State from Mount Vernon, October 9, 1795, Washington says: "My ardent desire is, and my aim has been, to comply strictly with all our engagements, foreign and domestic; but to keep the U States free from political connexions with every other Country. To see that they may be independent of all, and under the influence of none. In a word I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others, this in my opinion is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home and not by becoming the partizans of Great Britain or France, create dissensions, disturb the public tranquillity, and destroy perhaps for ever the cement which binds the Union." At a time of passionate political debate, it is time to step back and reflect on lessons that can be learned from the founding fathers about the way they tackled the important issues of their time....

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The return of the old Mubarak regime, with the bureaucracy, military and provincial loyalists supporting Mr. Shafiq as the presidential candidate. Shafiq was former commander of the Egyotian Air Force, the same branch of the military to which Mubarak belonged. The driector of the Carter Center in Egypt, Sanne Van Den Bergh, says the Egyptian military and government had imposed the most severe restrictions on independent election monitors compared to any other election it has monitored. Monitors could not stay at a polling station for more than 30 minutes, were not accredited in advance, and were not allowed to observe the totalling of votes at Cairo headquarters. Levinson describes how the old Mubarak regime loyalists and the military planned the operation. He describes how this has similiarities to what happened earlier, when the Mubarak regime under pressure from the Bush administration made openings by allowing the Muslim Brotherhood to contest elections and then clamping down to maintain control. The entire old system of the Mubarak regime, in business, the military, the bureaucracy, and in the provinces, with all loyalists owing their jobs and economic prospects to the regime, remains intact and has not changed since the democracy protests in 2011 and parliamentary elections. It has not made the transition to a new democratic process in Egyptian life, and has little to lose from making an effort to return to the old regime. With the military remaining above the constitution and run by members of the old Mubarak regime, democratic processes have fragile prospects. With the failure of the old regime to generate the economic opportunites and investments needed in agriculture and industry, the problem is how Egyptians can build an economic future, the alternative being falling further behind each year....

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The Muslim Brotherhood is thrust into a critical role as economic policymaker after winning the parliamentary elections in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood's foreign policy advisor, Essam El-Haddad, says it gave the IMF its tentative approval for a $3.2 billion loan to Egypt. Haddad says it was a very, very short time for the learning process to occur about the economic issues facing Egypt and the IMF. Foreign investment peaked in 2007 at $13.7 billion. It is now a small fraction of this and tourism earnings have declined to a third of what they were before. The Brotherhood cites the example of Turkey where the Islamist Justice and Development Party formed the government in 2002. At the time Turkish inflation was at 55%, the currency Turkish Lira had lost 51% of its value and GDP fell by 5.7%. Turkey has seen high economic growth in the last decade.

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Egypt's presidential candidate Mohammed Morsi, leads in the first round of presidential elections over Amr Moussa. He has no ties with the Mubarak regime and comes from the Muslim Brotherhood. Morsi is an engineer trained in Egypt and the U.S. Morsi graduated with bachelors and masters degree in engineering from Cairo University, and a PhD. from the University of Southern California in 1982. From 1982 to 1985, he was a professor at California State University at Northridge, California. In 1985 he returned to teach at a university in Egypt. He was elected to parliament as an independent candidate as the Mubark regime banned the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2011 he was elected head of the Freedom and Justice Party and made its candidate for president. Because of the severe economic problems facing Egypt- a demographic explosion of young people with few job opportunities, enough foreign reserves to finance a limited period of food and essential imports and dependent on the IMF for financing, neglected infrastructure development during decades of misrule under Mubarak- a candidate with an advanced engineering background trained in the U.S. could bring the right set of skills to the job of rebuilding Egypt. ...

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Kirkpatrick and Erlanger's interview with Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi. He says successive U.S. governments used taxpayer money to buy the dislike and hatred of peoples in the region by backing governments run by corrupt dictators who suppressed popular opposition. Morsi calls for a new attitude from the American people and Arab people of mutual respect of each other's cultures, and recalls his own days studying engineering at the University of Southern California.

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The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and its leader Khairat Al Shater. Al Shater talks to the WSJ's Kaminski on his plans for Egypt and his demands for reinstatement of the elected parliament, the newly elected president of Egypt Mohammed Morsi taking that position, and the military backing off from its decree of unlimited powers over the president and parliament. He says he does not want a collision with the military and prefers to achieve the goals over three or four years, feels the military betrayed them, and admits to having too many disagreements with other pro-democracy groups in Egypt. His new emphasis is on a broad based effort and national accord to bring democracy and the rule of law in Egypt. Al Shater is a new breed of Muslim Brotherhood leaders in that he is a businessman having made money in furniture, software and other businesses, and at the same time a devout Muslim who spent years in Saudi Arabia. An interesting fact about the Muslim Brotherhood is that many of the leaders are academics, engineers and doctors or businesspersons, yet devout Muslims....

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In Bagour, Egypt, in the crowded Nile delta, the old order was represented by Kamal-al-Shazli, a member of Parliament from the ruling party for 46 years. This means he entered Parliament in 1964, eight years after the Suez Crisis of 1956, when Egypt under a young military officer Gamal Abdel Nasser confronted the British and the French over the Suez Canal. Everything here in this town was done through Mr Shazli, the ultimate system of paronage was in place, and everything was named after him. Only the slogans of the anti-colonialism days, the days of hope of improving the living conditions of the people, remain. Everything else has stayed much the same for the vast majority of people. Now the task of changing things requires people to think for themselves and learn to work together to guide their own affairs under a democratic system of government and free expression. And this is quite different from the system in place for over 50 years, just as happened in the old Soviet Union. The old system was held together through a patronage system, bribes, enforced by the ruling party and its state security, and one in which individuals had to trust in the state to do their thinking for them about running the country....

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Egyptian president Morsi appoints a new defense minister and two leading generals are asked to retire and continue as advisers. Because Gen. Tantawi was 76, and the new defense minister who comes from the military body the SCAF is 58, it appears to observers that this is a shift to a new generation within the military. In the background is the situation in Syria with the Assad military regime at risk of falling in a civil war, and the focus of Sunni nations in the Middle East and the U.S. on Iran, which could have led to a U.S. effort led by Secretary of State Panetta during his recent visit to mediate between the different factions for a rapprochement. The rapprochement would benefit the retired generals and the military to continue operating businesses that constitute about 25% of the economy, a younger generation in the military better able to adapt to the changes in the Middle East to assume control under civilian leadership, for the Muslim Brotherhood and other political parties the reversing of military decrees subverting the election results, and for the U.S., Sunni nations in the Middle East and European allies better able to focus on the situation with Iran. For all side a win-win negotiation through efforts by Leon Panetta....

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Egyptian soccer riots at Port Said and the ineptitude of the police forces on the scene further damages the credibility of the military council. Vigorous debate in the newly elected parliament and efforts by the Muslim Brotherhood to wrest the drafting of the new constitution away from the military.

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Turkey's transition to democracy and a growing emerging market. Turkey's example provides a pathway for modernization in Egypt.