One question that has come out of the Middle East protests is whether political Islam is waxing or waning. What are your thoughts?
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We don’t know. The early indicators are that political Islam is a factor, but is not dominating the scene. Political Islam groups, like the Renaissance Party in Tunisia, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, are by all accounts possibly the most prepared. They have been the most repressed, they have strong networks and organizations, and they have ideological cohesion.
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All the other groups might be less cohesive and less ideologically organized, hence they might not be as ready for elections as the Brotherhood. [These] groups also are taking the temperature and the pulse of the region, and they’ve recognized that the [earlier versions of] political Islam is not going to work: It hasn’t worked well in Iran; there were experiments in Jordan; [it has been an] absolute failure in Sudan.
We will see a growing gap between religion and civic life. Time of Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and other religions is limited. Watch what happens in 2018 and 2019 in particular.