Cairo’s streets are ablaze. Hundreds of protesters, and perhaps a dozen policemen, have been killed. The government has periodically banned the Internet and other communication services. Gamal Mubarak, the embattled president Hosni Mubarak’s son and heir, has fled the country. A national curfew has been established.

So what does the future hold for Egypt? Is Cairo today Philadelphia in 1776, or Tehran in 1979?

The situation on the ground seems fluid. Protesters are not backing down, but neither is the army. Mubarak has decided to accommodate some of the opposition’s demands, and create a new government – the equivalent of saying, “Look, I believe in democracy! Just watch me appoint an entirely new governing body!” Nevertheless, Mubarak’s move to appoint Omar Suleiman as Vice President is smart. Suleiman is the head of Egypt’s general intelligence and is well-respected as a capable man, though his standing has been tainted by his collaboration with the CIA.

The good news is that the protests in Egypt are not led by Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood, who, if put in power, would undoubtedly jeopardize Egypt’s peace with Israel and position as a key American ally. Unfortunately, the Brotherhood does have enough power to keep the Egyptian opposition divided. The situation in Egypt is not the same as in Tunisia, where Islamists, long brutalized by the government, did not hold much power or influence. The central tension in Egypt — and in most Arab countries — is between a somewhat secular government and a radical, extremist Islamic movement, with the hoi polloi stuck somewhere in the middle; the Brotherhood could exploit the chaos to gain votes and spearhead the creation of a popular theocracy.

If all goes well, Mubarak will step down peacefully, and the opposition will create a new constitution where all political parties can compete fairly. The Muslim Brotherhood will not experience a surge in popularity, and instead, will remain the perennial Islamist opposition party. Though Egypt’s new government will likely be less pro-American than Mubarak’s, Egyptian leaders still know who carries the big stick (and the cash) in the Middle East, so a moderately pro-U.S. line will take place.

If it all goes to hell, somehow the Muslim Brotherhood will utilize tensions in the opposition and spearhead an Islamic revolution, which will bring down the Mubarak regime. With the Brotherhood in power, Israel will have to face the prospect of its first open war in over 30 years, and terrorists and Islamists all over the world will be emboldened. In Egypt, a slow Islamification process similar to the one Iran has witnessed this past decade will speed up, and eventually — despite the Brotherhood’s lofty rhetoric of “Islamic democracy” — a theocracy a la Ayatollah Khomeini will be established.

The first scenario seems too perfect. This sort of wishful, pro-democracy thinking is what took place in Baghdad in 2003 and in Beirut in 2005. And look where Iraq and Lebanon are now: the former a sort of managed debacle, and the latter a proxy of Iran and Syria.

The second scenario is plain unlikely. The Brotherhood has been repeatedly broken by the government and is, after all, not the majority party. And the protests are more a result of popular demands – less corruption, more democracy, electricity, bread – than an authentic Islamist revival.

My prediction is nevertheless closer to the rosier scenario: that Mohamed ElBaradei and some sort of new coalition government will take power. Mubarak and his cronies have been abysmal to their people, and must go. However, this new Arab democracy will have to conform to the standards of the region, so don’t expect it to start genuinely caring about Palestinians or the like. It will be a flawed democracy, one in which corruption, censorship, and the violent suppression of opposition groups will still take place. But it will be a democracy, and for the Middle East, that is definitely something.

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