Letters to the Editor: Feb. 20, 2011

Egypt at great risk of becoming radicalized Re: “The risk that 2/11/11 will end up like Iran’s 2/11/79,” Feb. 13

I agree with Michael Barone’s assertion that Egypt may experience the same fate as Iran. In the last 100 years, a number of unstable countries were taken over by relatively small groups of disciplined, fanatical ideologues who defeated their much larger, but diverse and divided opponents. This happened in czarist Russia in 1918, in 1933 in Germany, after World War II in China, and in Iran after the collapse of the shah’s regime. After these ideologues attained power, they did not entertain any challenges.