Portrait of the General as a Not-So-Young Grad Student

Egypt's army chief isn't an Islamist -- in fact, his work at the U.S. Army War College suggests he may be a Mubarak clone

Foreign Policy

"What does Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi really think about democracy in the Middle East? From the moment President Mohamed Morsy promoted Sisi as Egypt's defense minister in August 2012, rumors have swirled about his supposed Islamist leanings. The army chief was said to be particularly devout, and the fact that Morsy passed over more senior generals in selecting him fueled claims that Sisi was a Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer. Even after he deposed Morsy, observers of Egyptian politics have wondered whether he hopes to use his newfound power to implement an Islamist agenda.

A 2006 paper Sisi wrote while studying at the U.S. Army War College, titled "Democracy in the Middle East," has garnered much attention in this regard. Naval Postgraduate School professor Robert Springborg contended in Foreign Affairs that the document "reads like a tract produced by the Muslim Brotherhood," and "embraces a more radical view of the proper place of religion in an Islamic democracy."

This view of Sisi as an Islamist may prove accurate, because little is known of the sunglass-sporting general who is now Egypt's de facto leader. But after thoroughly examining Sisi's paper -- which you can download here -- I found little evidence of Islamism. If anything, the paper reflects the boilerplate, nationalistic rhetoric of Mubarak-era Egyptian officials -- not the theocratic rhetoric of the Muslim Brotherhood.....

Sisi's paper, in other words, doesn't reflect Islamists' obsession with constructing an Islamic state -- it reflects Mubarak's obsession with preventing Western pressure to democratize. For Sisi, the question is not whether Islam and democracy can coexist, but "whether the rest of the world will be able to accept a democracy in the Middle East founded on Islamic beliefs."

It's an especially ironic sentence to read today. For better or worse, the international community was prepared to accept a state in Egypt "founded on Islamic beliefs." Sisi and millions of his fellow Egyptians, however, were not. "