Tahrir today

There’s a big protest today in Tahrir. This is domestic politics for Egyptians now, and they can work it out for themselves.

I’ve heard varying theories about the recent disqualification of 10 Presidential candidates, ranging from optimistic to pessimistic to paranoid.

Two colleagues put me at ease about it the other night at dinner (I’d been inclining toward the “paranoid” interpretation before then), but then another colleague wrote an editorial that swung me back towards a more pessimistic reading of the situation. The fact is, I just don’t know the truth here.

The two people I saw at dinner the other night, a very well-educated Egyptian and a very well-informed American, cautioned the rest of the table not to assume that Soliman’s candidacy was some last-minute diabolical masterstroke by SCAF. The Egyptian, in particular, thought that putting up Soliman as the candidate was simply an idiotic blunder by the Army, not some sort of dark Machiavellian scheme. We’ll see where this goes.