Democracy in Egypt

"This afternoon I spoke at a standing room only panel discussion in the Congressional office buildings about U.S. policy towards Egyptian democracy hosted by the Project on Middle East Democracy. I don't think I made any new friends in the Egyptian embassy (although their representative was perfectly friendly afterwards). My assignment was to talk about the Egyptian political scene, not the U.S. policy debate, which is what I did. I did end up speaking more directly in the discussion period in favor of conditionality on economic and military aid, and other forms of pressure, since the other two panelists were skeptical about their usefulness. Happy to elaborate on that later, if people are interested, but for now I just want to post the text of my prepared remarks before I head out to teach."
Abu Aardvark