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To the outside world, the leader of Egypt's anti-Mubarak revolt is a scholarly former United Nations official named Mohamed ElBaradei.

But to the seasoned opposition leaders inside Egypt who have been at the center of the country's mass demonstrations, Mr. ElBaradei may be little more than a transitional figurehead.

In the weeks leading up to the extraordinary uprising, a spectrum of opposition figures banded together to plan an alternative vision to the regime of President Hosni Mubarak. Even before last month's popular ouster of Tunisia's president electrified protesters in Egypt and across the Middle East, these people held dozens of meetings lasting more than 100 hours. They created a 100-member "shadow legislature" of union leaders, judges and representatives from youth parties and the country's banned but influential Muslim Brotherhood, say people in attendance.

While the speed and scope of the past week's protests in Egypt largely took them by surprise, the opposition figures quickly assembled a game plan. On Tuesday, when the shadow legislature's 10-person steering committee met for the first time, they agreed to back Mr. ElBaradei in their negotiations with Mr. Mubarak's government.

But these people say they see Mr. ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace-prize winner of international standing, as less of a future president than a fair and nonpartisan figurehead and an arbiter capable of refereeing their discussions. Because he has spent much of his life outside the gritty world of domestic politics, he is also seen as posing little threat to these parties should they begin the hardnosed business of vying in earnest for power.

Mr. ElBaradei's appearance Sunday night in Cairo's central Tahrir Square disappointed many activists, who felt he had failed to seize the moment to rally the crowd. Many protesters said they didn't notice he was there or know that he had spoken. He hasn't shown up to the square since, including for Tuesday's "march of millions," which drew hundreds of thousands of Egyptians to demand Mr. Mubarak's ouster.

Mr. ElBaradei also hasn't attended meetings of the shadow legislature's steering committee—of which he is a member—so far this week, following his return to Cairo from abroad as demonstrations were already gaining speed. A spokesman for Mr. ElBaradei said he lives too far away from central Cairo and has been tired out by the last few days of demonstrations.

One pivotal participant has been the Muslim Brotherhood, a Cairo-based group banned in Egypt that hopes to meld the Islamic religion with Egypt's legal system.

Its representatives reassured skeptics among their secular allies who have long feared the Brotherhood would try to dominate any alliance they joined, when they were content to take just 15% of the shadow parliament's seats.

The committee of 10 met for the first time Tuesday morning, over tea and biscuits in the waiting room of the medical clinic belonging to one of the committee members. Their first task was to coordinate their response to an offer by Egypt's newly appointed Vice President Omar Suleiman, who until Saturday was Mr. Mubarak's longtime trusted intelligence chief, to hold negotiations with all opposition forces, including the banned Brotherhood.

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The Muslim Brotherhood ***** has nothing to do with extremism as we have seen it in Afghanistan and other places. The Muslim Brotherhood is a religiously conservative group. They are a minority in Egypt. They are not a majority of the Egyptian people, but they have a lot of credibility because of liberal parties have been a struggle for thirty years. They are in favor of a secular state. they are of -they are in favor of an institution that have bread lines, they are in favor that every Egyptian have the same rights, that the state is in no way a state based on religion. And I have been reaching out to them. We need to include them.
Mohamed ElBaradei.

This guy is going to lead Egypt down the path of Islamic extremism.  The Muslim Brotherhood's record is clear for anyone who wants to see it.  They have already murdered 2 presidents in Egypt.  

Since its inception in 1928 the movement has officially opposed violent means to achieve its goals, with some exceptions such as in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  

Osama bin Laden claimed to have been influenced by the religious and political ideas of several professors with strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

U.S. White House counterterrorism chief Juan Zarate, who says "The Muslim Brotherhood is a group that worries us not because it deals with philosophical or ideological ideas but because it defends the use of violence against civilians."

Former U.S. Middle East peace envoy Dennis Ross, who told Asharq Alawsat newspaper that the Muslim Brotherhood is a global, not a local organization, governed by a Shura (Consultative) Council, which rejects cessation of violence in Israel, and supports violence to achieve its political objectives elsewhere too.

The Interior Minister of Saudi Arabia, Prince Naif Ibn Abdul Aziz has stated that the Muslim Brotherhood organization was the cause of most problems in the Arab world.

And Mohamed ElBaradei has defended this group and plans to include them in govt if he takes over.

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Originally Posted by Dennis Young:


And Mohamed ElBaradei has defended this group and plans to include them in govt if he takes over.

they're just using him to grant their cause international credibility, because he has very little credibility within the country. i just keep hoping that somehow, the populist sentiment isn't co-opted by these extremists. i can't tell if we're better off the longer this goes on, or the shorter.

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You may be right.  I tellya though..nothing...and I mean nothing in the world scares me like radical Islam.  I now have an idea of how people of my grandparents' generation feared the Nazis.

I worry about the spread of Islamic groups...what their plans are for the Western World, the Jews and the Christians.

First comes Saturday...
then comes Sunday.

Look that up.