How should the United States respond to the demonstrations against Egypt’s president of three decades, Hosni Mubarak? Scholars, experts and pundits disagree on what to do next, which group or leader to support. The fear is that the post-Mubarak regime could resemble Iran’s Islamofascist “republic” after the fall of the Shah. No one really knows what will happen next.

The question is how — or whether — Islam can exist within an Egyptian government that is at peace with its neighbors and respects freedom, equal rights for women and religious minorities, and free market principles that build a prosperous society.