After the peaceful mass uprising that toppled one of the world's oldest autocracies, it is now possible to imagine the emergence of a genuine democracy in Egypt-the most important country in the Arab world. The very possibility of it marks an historic turning point for the entire region. However, there is a long and often treacherous distance between the demise of an authoritarian regime and the rise of a democracy.

With no experience of democracy in recent decades, and no apparent government leadership that is committed to bringing it about, Egypt's transition faces more formidable challenges than the transitions that led to democracy in recent decades in countries like Spain, Greece, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, the Philippines, Poland, South Africa, Indonesia, and Ukraine. (Which isn't to say these were easy: We forget how difficult each of these transitions seemed at the time, and how fraught they were with dangers and uncertainties.) With an energized civil society and deep resources of youthful talent, creativity, and mobilizing skill, Egypt has a real chance to get to democracy in the next few years. But doing so will require a keen analysis of the numerous potential traps that could sandbag the process.

The first trap is the Machiavellian opaqueness of the aging generals who are now running the country. Beginning with the Defense Minister (and now junta leader) Mohamed Tantawi, until a few days ago a close ally of the deposed President Mubarak, Egypt's new military rulers cannot be trusted to structure the political process and emergent rules in a way that will favor genuine democracy. Their principal goal, it appears, is to preserve as much of the old order as possible-Mubarakism without Mubarak (the father or the son). This means another round of the old shell game of Arab regimes-what Daniel Brumberg has called "liberalized autocracy." The process of liberalization-which runs in cycles, and which countries like Morocco and Jordan have seen many iterations of-institutes just enough change in the rules and faces to give the appearance of movement toward democracy without any of the dangers (for the ruling elite). But the changes, imposed from above, stop well short of the sweeping institutional transformations that would open wide the political arena (and the functioning of government) while leveling the playing field.

In their initial "communiqués," Egypt's ruling generals show signs of treading down this duplicitous path. Their initial choices have evinced the seductive veneer of democratic change but the closure and control of authoritarian continuity. To begin with, there appears so far to be little consultation with democratic forces in determining the character and pace of transition. Despite opposition demands, emergency rule remains in place, and so do many political prisoners. The military's initial decisions have been unilateral and preemptory. We learn there will be a constitution drafted within two months, followed by a referendum. A respected retired judge will head the process. This will produce "amendments" to the now-suspended authoritarian constitution. But what will be the role for Egyptian opposition and civil society in this process? What will be the scope down the road to draft a completely new, more democratic and legitimate constitution with broad popular participation and support? Will the president to be elected later this year serve another imperial six-year term, or be a caretaker heading a neutral government until a new constitution can be adopted and fresh elections held? At this point, if anyone knows the answers to these questions, it is only the junta.

The military is talking about early presidential and legislative elections, within six months. What could be more democratic than that? But, in fact, after the fall of a longstanding autocracy, it typically takes a lot longer than six months to organize competitive, free, and fair elections. Think of the steps. A neutral and independent electoral administration must be established. This requires not just legal authorization but also new leadership, and recruitment, training, funding, and deployment of new staff and equipment. If Egypt's generals intend to have elections administered by the same Ministry of Interior that shamelessly rigged the vote for Mubarak and his ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), that will be a sure sign that they do not intend to deliver democracy-or are too incompetent and cavalier to care. Then, the next step must be to produce a new register of voters. Experts believe only a quarter of eligible Egyptians are registered to vote today. The exclusion was very useful to perpetuating autocracy but could be deadly for an emerging democracy. That will take months, money, and far-reaching organization to do even reasonably well.

It will be one thing to elect a new president and quite another to choose a new parliament in Egypt's transitional flux. The military now suggests the two elections can be held together within six months. But they will have very different logics and requirements. A presidential election will be much simpler. The old order will no doubt throw up a somewhat more palatable face, perhaps the former Foreign Minister Amr Moussa. The democratic opposition may well rally behind a single candidate (though the regime, no longer able to exclude a democratic alternative, will probably try to fragment the field with as many opposition candidates as possible). Still, voters will be faced with a few principal choices for national leadership, and it won't matter where people vote, so long as they are of voting age and only vote once. This kind of election can be done more roughly and quickly, tossing aside the voter register and just dipping every forefinger in indelible ink after it has marked a ballot for one presidential candidate or another. It will be important in this election-and every future one-to ensure transparency and citizen monitoring of the vote, as well as to have Egypt's judiciary oversee the balloting (as it did in previous elections until the judges got too good at it and Mubarak cut them out). But, otherwise, a presidential election won't be a complicated affair.

By contrast, new parliamentary elections present formidable challenges. First, Egyptians (and hopefully not just the military) must decide what electoral system will be used. This choice can invoke arcane debate, but it may be one of the most important that Egypt makes in pursuit of democracy. If the electoral rules are "majoritarian," in that they make it hard for small minorities to get elected, they will work to the disadvantage of not just small ideological tendencies but also the welter of new, emerging parties and political forces-many of them liberal and secular-that will just be taking shape and starting to test their strength. This will inflate the strength of the only two political forces that now have effective political organizations on the ground-the old ruling party and the Muslim Brotherhood (with a smattering of some of the other older opposition parties). If Egypt retains the current electoral system of two-member districts (with each voter getting two votes), these two established political forces could sweep most of the seats between them, marginalizing the moderates, polarizing the parliament and political system, and dooming democracy from the start. Creating a liberal center in democratic politics requires more than moral and technical support for these parties to function; it also requires rules that enable them to get traction.

A much better-and fairer-alternative would be to elect the new parliament using some form of proportional representation, so that parties would win seats roughly in proportion to their vote shares. That way, new parties could begin to gain a foothold in the political process. Perhaps ironically, the best way to do this might be the way Iraq now does, by using the existing governorates (29 in Egypt) as multimember districts, and having each district then elect a share of seats equivalent to its share of the population. This would allow for very proportional results, with districts generally containing ten to 25 seats, while still enabling some accountability and candidate familiarity at the local level.

A truly democratic parliamentary election in Egypt cannot be pulled off in six months. In fact, it might require well over a year to prepare. But the alternative would be to rush to a vote with a flawed system that would leave Egypt's new democratic forces on the margins not just of legislating but of constitution-making as well.

How a new permanent constitution will be drafted-if it is even intended by the military-also remains a mystery at this point. The worst option would be to have a closed and hurried process dominated from above by the military. But that seems to be what the junta intends for the transitional period. Successful democratic transitions either use an expert but broadly representative constitutional drafting commission, and then a popular referendum to confirm the draft, or an elected constitutional assembly (often acting simultaneously as a parliament), possibly followed also by a popular referendum (as in Iraq). Some have used all of these methods combined. Experience of recent decades underscores the importance for future democratic legitimacy and stability of eliciting extensive public dialogue and broad popular participation in the constitution-making process, with adequate preparation and civic education and widespread media exposure, as in South Africa. A thorough, inclusive, and deliberate process of constitutional drafting and debate can also help to breed a more democratic culture at both the elite and mass levels. A rushed and closed process perpetuates authoritarian mentalities (and, often, authoritarian rules as well).

Prior to all of this is the most basic question of who writes the rules, the timetable, and the mode of transition. Egypt has now entered a classic transition game where the authoritarian regime and the democratic opposition have sharply different interests and little basis for cooperation and trust. As an institution, Egypt's military may not be hated the way Mubarak and his cronies were, but many of the generals were Mubarak's cronies. And the military's core interests are not freedom and democracy for the people, but preserving their own power, wealth, privilege, and impunity. The core lesson of numerous prior transitions is the need for a negotiated way out of this potentially fatal impasse. Democrats want democracy with no guarantees to autocrats. Autocrats want guarantees, with no real democracy.

There is an obvious generic compromise, and every successful negotiated transition-from Spain and Brazil to Poland, South Africa, and Indonesia-has settled on a version of it. The old order gets to hang on to most of its wealth and privilege, along with military autonomy at least for a time. Few, if any, henchmen of the old order are prosecuted for their past crimes, unless it is for the last, desperate excesses of a few diehards trying to hang on during the transition. Real accountability waits for a later day. Democrats get democracy. Autocrats (mostly) retain their wealth and influence, but they cannot bid for power unless they play the democratic game. The Yale political scientist Robert Dahl coined a term for this type of bargain. He called it "mutual security." From the Spanish transition on, the generic bargain became known as a political pact.

Only a negotiated pact between Egypt's surviving authoritarian regime and its emergent democratic forces can steer the transition through the current treacherous straits to calmer and freer waters. For that to happen, Egypt's disparate democratic forces must unify in a broad negotiating front that unites the "outside" opposition of the youthful movements with the "inside" opposition of the "wise persons" and established parties who have so far dominated, on an ad hoc basis, the discussions with the old order.

Opposition unity will give Egypt's democrats strategic leverage; if negotiations stall due to regime intransigence, then the unified opposition can more credibly threaten to turn out people by the millions again in protest. But, if negotiations move forward to ensure the essential conditions for a democratic transition-an end to emergency rule; freedom of organization, expression, and assembly; judicial independence; and new and fair electoral administration-then a unified opposition can guarantee social peace and political stability. Opposition coherence enables clear negotiating priorities to level the playing field and ensure a democratic transition. It will also give the old order a clear set of interlocutors who can credibly commit to deliver popular support behind a difficult compromise agreement. No condition is more important for a successful transition.

The role for the United States and other international actors is not to dictate terms for the transition or structures for the new political order. That is not our place, and Egyptians of every political stripe will resent it. But international actors should offer training to political parties and technical and financial assistance to the new civil society organizations and state institutions needed to make democracy work. For the United States., this will mean millions of dollars in new assistance for democracy in Egypt-but that is a trifle compared to the $68 billion we have invested in dictatorship (even if it was to buy peace). No less importantly, other democracies (including leaders of recent democratic transitions) can encourage Egypt's opposition groups to coalesce and share lessons of the strategies and choices that have led to democratic outcomes. And the Obama administration can make it clear to Egypt's military rulers that nothing less than a real transition to democracy-with broad consultation, serious negotiations, and a new climate of freedom-will return Egypt to stability and a lasting partnership with the United States.

Sherman’s introduction to the psyche of the soldier was personal: Her father, a World War II veteran, carried his dog tags on his keychain with him for 65 years before passing away just over a year ago. Sherman perceived her father’s choice to carry his dog tags not as one of honor, but instead as an obligation he felt to carry the moral load of his war. “He was a medic; he never fired an arm. But he carried the war, and what he saw in the war, with him.” 

To understand the moral psyche of the soldier, Sherman studies three forms of guilt: accident guilt, “luck” guilt and collateral-damage guilt. Accident guilt occurs when soldiers blame themselves for an accident that occurred under their watch. Sherman told the story of Capt. John Prior, who came to speak to her after the gun on a Bradley Fighting Vehicle accidentally fired, blowing off the face of a private under Prior’s watch. “It was as if an ice-cream scoop scooped out his face in front of me,” Prior told Sherman. “It was one of the few times in my life I’ve really cried.” Objectively, Sherman explained, one would not place blame on Prior because he was simply part of a causal chain and not the culpable link. But this fails to explain the despair, the self-indictment and the empathy that still invade Prior’s mind. “I’m the one who placed the vehicles. I’m the one who set the security. And as with most accidents, I’m not in jail right now,” he told Sherman. “Probably not a day goes by that I don’t think about it, even fleetingly.” In the case of Prior, Sherman says a deep moral accountability is at the heart of the soldier’s guilt, similar to the philosopher Nietzsche’s concept of “bad conscience.”

Luck guilt occurs when soldiers feel that by remaining alive following a catastrophic event of war, they betray those who gave their lives to battle, or feel, if they are not on the field of battle, that they are not sharing the burden shouldered by their comrades. Sherman told of when she visited the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis and spoke to marines who felt that they did not deserve to be surrounded by green scenery while their brothers fought in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan. The same was the case at the Army’s Walter Reed Medical Center, Sherman said. Even a student of Sherman’s at Georgetown spoke to her of the “dereliction of duty” he felt when insurgents in the Iraqi city of Tal Afar attacked a unit he formerly led, killing his friend. Sherman’s student yearned to have shielded his unit, even from thousands of miles away, and only after waging a moral battle within himself did he come to the reasonable conclusion that he could not, in fact, re-assimilate at home while also still protecting his friends on the war front.

Collateral-damage guilt affects soldiers whose actions result in the death of civilians. Sherman told the story of Col. Bob Durkin, who led a battalion in Baghdad during Operation Iraqi Freedom 2. Durkin told Sherman that his unit was “emotionally devastated” when children were killed in attacks on vehicle checkpoints. Soldiers would often go out of their way to order a medical evacuation for children, even when their own lives were still at risk. One might speculate that these soldiers rationally feel guilty, but Sherman believes that a deeper, moral intuition is at play: The soldiers internalize that they are not fighters at checkpoints; they are police, social developers – and healers. Their job is to remove children from the chaos that war has become, not watch as they are killed by a bomb meant for the soldiers.

Studying soldier guilt is especially pertinent to the current war in Afghanistan because the U.S. strategy there is grounded in population-centric, counterinsurgency warfare. Such operations require soldiers to restrain themselves from all-out battle and instead win the hearts and minds of the population they aim to protect from insurgent forces. Sherman argues that soldiers should be better trained and prepared to exercise restraint, thereby reducing the moral burden they carry in and after war. At the same time, she acknowledges the difficulty: When a soldier returns from war, the uniform does not come off so easily. As Will Quinn, a student of Sherman’s who once interrogated prisoners at Abu Ghraib, told her: “War takes place in a different time and space. But I know I’m the same person who was doing those things, and that’s what tears at your soul.”

The Drell Lecture series is an annual public event sponsored by CISAC. It is named for Sidney Drell, CISAC’s founding co-director.

The toppling of Egypt's modern-day pharaoh through peaceful mass protests, aided by Facebook and Twitter, marks a watershed for Egypt and the entire Arab world. Contrary to widespread anxieties in the U.S. foreign policy establishment, it will also serve the long-term interests of the United States - and Israel.

Many analysts of Egypt have been warning for years that the status quo under Hosni Mubarak was not sustainable. A repressive and deeply corrupt dictatorship was sitting on top of a social volcano - an increasingly young, urbanized, digitally connected population seething over the lack of freedom, dignity and economic opportunity. A quarter of Egypt's working-age youth are unemployed and many more under-employed. Over the past two decades, average incomes in Egypt stagnated while they doubled or tripled elsewhere in the region.

Think of what could have happened. Many observers (including myself) worried that the growing alienation of young Egyptians might flow in anti-American, anti-Israeli and radical Islamist directions. The inevitable eruption could have turned violent, resulting in the kind of bloody suppression that gripped Algeria in the early 1990s, when 200,000 died. Or it might have been hijacked by radical Islamists who would ride the popular revolution to power, as in Iran in 1979.

So far, none of these have happened. The millions of Egyptians who have poured into the streets of Cairo and other cities have not been chanting "down with America," nor have their protests been about Israel (or the Palestinians). Rather, they want freedom, justice and accountability in Egypt. They have mobilized for democratic change with extraordinary discipline, imagination and moderation. In the face of killings, provocations, arrests and torture, they have adhered to nonviolence as a sacred principle.

In achieving the first condition for Egypt's liberation, the departure of the pharaoh, through peaceful grassroots mobilization, a huge chip has been lifted from their shoulders. Now Egyptians feel a new sense of pride, confidence and empowerment. And they are beginning to view the United States in a fresh and more hopeful light, not because of President Obama's Cairo Speech in 2009 but because of what he said and subtly did in the last two weeks (after several rhetorical blunders by some in his administration). As the mass protests grew, Obama aligned the United States more explicitly behind the goal of peaceful democratic change, warned the regime against the use of force, and urged Mubarak to step aside. The experience could mark a turning point not just for Egypt but for Barack Obama personally. He now has the chance to nurture democratic change in the Arab world through artful diplomacy and timely assistance, where George W. Bush failed with blunter rhetoric and means.

Israel as well should be reassured by developments so far. Egypt's new (and hopefully temporary) military junta has quickly reaffirmed the country's treaty obligations. Few protesters are calling for abrogation of Egypt's peace with Israel. Most protesters resent Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and want an independent Palestinian state, but mainly they want to transform their own country politically and economically. They know their aspirations for human dignity and economic opportunity can only be met with far-reaching internal reforms, and that the worn-out theme of anti-Zionism is a divergence from that. Israel and its friends should thus welcome democratic change in Egypt. The only way to guarantee a lasting Middle East peace is to root negotiated agreements in the same democratic legitimacy that undergirds the stability and resilience of Israel's political system. As Thomas Friedman recently observed, it is a better bet to make peace with 82 million people than with one man.

The challenge now is to ensure that Egypt's revolution produces a genuine pluralist democracy. This is far from assured.

Egypt's military rulers may well seek to sabotage the transition and restore the old order with a slightly more democratic façade. Or the Muslim Brotherhood (which rejects violent means but clings to Islamist political ends) could gain the upper hand in popular mobilization or elections. But the second scenario will be much more likely to follow, rather than prompt, the first. If a democratic transition unfolds seriously and peacefully through negotiations and reform, and if democratic institutions are well designed, the Muslim Brotherhood will be a significant but minority player.

For Egypt, Mubarak's fall is only the first step along a tortuous path. If its transition leads to democracy, it will produce a much more reliable partner for peace and progress in the Middle East. That is why other democracies in the world should support it in every way possible.

Two decades after the fall of Soviet-bloc dictatorships, popular movements for democracy are erupting in the last regional bastion of authoritarianism: the Arab world.

So far, only Tunisia's dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, has been toppled, while Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak - who has ruled that ancient land longer than many pharaohs - announced Tuesday that he will step down in September. But other Arab autocrats are bound to go. From Algeria to Syria to Jordan, people are fed up with stagnation and injustice, and are mobilizing for democratic change.

So, what happens when the autocrat is gone? Will the end of despotism give way to chaos - as happened when Mobutu Sese Seko was toppled in 1997 after more than 30 years in power in Zaire? Will the military or some civilian strongman fill the void with a new autocracy - as occurred after the overthrow of Arab monarchs in Egypt and Iraq in the 1950s, and as has been the norm in most of the world until recently? Or can some of the Arab nations produce real democracy - as we saw in most of Eastern Europe and about half the states of sub-Saharan Africa? Regime transitions are uncertain affairs. But since the mid-1970s, more than 60 countries have found their way to democracy. Some have done so in circumstances of rapid upheaval that offer lessons for reformers in Tunisia, Egypt and other Arab countries today.

Unite the democratic opposition.

When a dictatorship is on the ropes, one thing that can rescue it is a divided opposition. That is why autocrats so frequently foster those divisions, secretly funding a proliferation of opposition parties. Even extremely corrupt rulers may generate significant electoral support - not the thumping majorities they claim, but enough to steal an election - when the opposition is splintered.

In the Philippines in 1986, Nicaragua in 1990 and Ukraine in 2004, the opposition united around the candidacies of Corazon Aquino, Violeta Chamorro and Viktor Yushchenko, respectively. Broad fronts such as these - as well as the Concertacion movement that swept Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin to power in Chile in 1989 after the departure of Gen. Augusto Pinochet - often span deep personal and ideological differences. But the time for democratic forces to debate those matters is later, once the old order is defeated and democratic institutions have been established.

Egypt is fortunate - it has an obvious alternative leader, Mohamed ElBaradei, whom disparate opposition elements seem to be rallying around. Whether the next presidential election is held on schedule in September or moved up, ElBaradei, or anyone like him leading a broad opposition front, will probably win a resounding victory over anyone connected to Mubarak's National Democratic Party.

Make sure the old order really is gone.

The exit of a long-ruling strongman, such as Ben Ali, does not necessarily mean the end of a regime. Fallen dictators often leave behind robust political and security machines. No autocrat in modern times met a more immediate fate than Romania's Nicolae Ceausescu, who was executed by a firing squad of his own soldiers in 1989 just three days after a popular revolution forced him to flee the capital. Yet his successor, Ion Iliescu, was a corrupt former communist who obstructed political reform. Most of the former Soviet states, such as Georgia and Kazakhstan, had similar experiences.

Countries are much more likely to get to democracy quickly if they identify and embrace political leaders who are untainted by the old order and are ready to roll it back.

But also come to an understanding with the old order.

Victorious democrats won't be able to completely excise the pillars of the authoritarian order. Instead, for their country to turn toward democracy, those pillars must be neutralized or co-opted. This old order may descend into violence when, as in Iraq, broad classes of elites are stigmatized and ousted from their positions. In a successful bargain, most old-regime elites retain their freedom, assets and often their jobs but accept the new rules of the democratic game.

Unless the military collapses in defeat, as it did in Greece in 1974 and in Argentina after the Falklands War, it must be persuaded to at least tolerate a new democratic order. In the short run, that means guaranteeing the military significant autonomy, as well as immunity from prosecution for its crimes. Over time, civilian democratic control of the military can be extended incrementally, as was done masterfully in Brazil in the 1980s and in Chile during the 1990s. But if the professional military feels threatened and demeaned from the start, the transition is in trouble.

The same principle applies to surviving elements of the state security apparatus, the bureaucracy and the ruling party. In South Africa, for example, old-regime elements received amnesty for their human rights abuses in exchange for fully disclosing what they had done. In this and other successful transitions, top officials were replaced, but most state bureaucrats kept their jobs.

Rewrite the rules.

A new democratic government needs a new constitution, but it can't be drawn up too hastily. Meanwhile, some key provisions can be altered expeditiously, either by legislation, interim executive fiat or national consensus.

In Spain, the path to democratization was opened by the Law for Political Reform, adopted by the parliament within a year of dictator Francisco Franco's death in 1975. Poland adopted a package of amendments in 1992, only after it had elected a new parliament and a new president, Lech Walesa; a new constitution followed in 1997. South Africa enacted an interim constitution to govern the country while it undertook an ambitious constitution-writing process with wide popular consultation - which is the ideal arrangement.

An urgent priority, though, is to rewrite the rules so that free and fair elections are possible. This must happen before democratic elections can be held in Egypt and Tunisia. In transitions toward democracy, there is a strong case for including as many political players as possible. This requires some form of proportional representation to ensure that emerging small parties can have a stake in the new order, while minimizing the organizational advantage of the former ruling party. In the 2005 elections in Iraq, proportional representation ensured a seat at the table for smaller minority and liberal parties that could never have won a plurality in individual districts.

Isolate the extremes.

That said, not everyone can or should be brought into the new democratic order. Prosecuting particularly venal members of a former ruling family, such as those tied to the Philippines' Ferdinand Marcos, Indonesia's fallen strongman Suharto or now Tunisia's Ben Ali, can be part of a larger reconciliation strategy. But the circle of punishment must be drawn narrowly. It may even help the transition to drive a wedge between a few old-regime cronies and the bulk of the establishment, many of whom may harbor grievances against "the family."

A transitional government should aim for inclusion, and should test the democratic commitment of dubious players rather than inadvertently induce them to become violent opponents. However, groups that refuse to renounce violence as a means of obtaining power, or that reject the legitimacy of democracy, have no place in the new order. That provision was part of the wisdom of the postwar German constitution.

Transitions are full of opportunists, charlatans and erstwhile autocrats who enter the new political field with no commitment to democracy. Every democratic transition that has endured - from Spain and Portugal to Chile, South Africa and now hopefully Indonesia - has tread this path.

Fragile democracies become stable when people who once had no use for democracy embrace it as the only game in town.

"Recent events in Tunisia and now in Egypt demonstrate that there is no Arab cultural exception to the broad desire for freedom around the world," writes Francis Fukuyama in the Wall Street Journal. People want political rights because they want their governments to treat them with dignity, a wish that obviously reverts throughout the Arab world, he states. At present, the best organized forces in Egypt are the military and the Muslim Brotherhood. "Egyptians who want a free and democratic future," he says, "had better get busy organizing themselves."

After nearly 30 years on the throne, Egypt's modern-day pharaoh, Hosni Mubarak, will soon follow in the footsteps of Tunisia's dictator, Ben Ali. The only question is not whether he will leave the presidency of Egypt, or even when, but how. In the face of persistent and growing mass protests-and a newfound sense of civic empowerment on the part of Egypt's long demoralized youthful masses-it is difficult to imagine Mubarak surviving in office for more than another week to ten days. The only question is whether he will see the inevitable and do one last service to his country-leave office gracefully-or whether he will have to be pushed out by the military or a deepening climate of chaos on the streets.

Egypt is very far from being "ready" institutionally or civically for democracy, but it is perched at an interesting point that could make a transition to democracy feasible. 

First, the naming of a Vice-President, after the office sat vacant throughout Mubarak's presidency, leaves open the possibility of an orderly transitional succession. Should the savvy former intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, read his country's mood shrewdly and decide to preside over a free and fair contest for the presidential election six months hence, he could go down as a hero in Egyptian history, negating the central role he played in a now widely reviled regime. Parallels to the now valued transitional role played by Indonesia's Vice President, Habibie, after the fall of Suharto in 1998 come to mind. However, as the public mood shifts toward demand for a thorough house-cleaning, it is possible that nothing less than a broad-based interim government will satisfy popular demands for change.

Second, in contrast to Tunisia, there is an obvious democratic alternative to Mubarak (or Suleiman, or any other regime stalwart): the Nobel-prize-winning former IAEA head, Mohamed ElBaradei.  As a political novice who has lived outside Egypt for most of the last few decades, ElBaradei is far from an ideal founding president of a new democracy (but then, few countries in a situation of regime turmoil, or even after a carefully planned transition, wind up with a leader of the vision and political skill of Nelson Mandela). Yet ElBaradei has a number of assets, including a keen understanding of the international environment, wide international contacts, experience in running a large organization, a personal history that is untainted by association with the repression and corruption of the Mubarak era, and the apparent ability to unite disparate elements of the opposition, religious and secular, behind his candidacy.

Beyond ElBaradei, the emergence of a broad opposition effort (including ElBaradei and former opposition presidential candidate Ayman Nour) to negotiate the terms of a transition and a new national unity government also augur hopefully for the near-term future.

If a reasonably free and fair contest for the presidency could be organized on schedule in September 2011, there is little doubt that the long-ruling NDP would be dealt a crushing defeat.  To ensure that, however, would not only require institutional changes to allow a fully open and free presidential contest, but also to ensure a fresh registration of voters and neutral administration of the electoral process. These changes would need to be implemented fairly quickly to enable a credible and reasonably fair process as soon as September. The first such change will need to be a constitutional amendment to remove the condition that requires a party to have 5 percent of the seats in parliament in order to field a presidential candidate. 

If the September election timetable can be adhered to, the democratic election of a new president of Egypt would be the beginning, not the end, of a democratic transition in Egypt.  The parliament will need to be completely reelected, as the elections of late 2010 were even more farcical and outrageously rigged than previous ones. As a result, the ruling NDP won 81 percent of the seats, and no opposition party won more than a small sliver of seats in an election that at least three-quarters of eligible voters (and probably many more) boycotted. 

A new democratically elected president would thus need to preside over a far-reaching transitional process, which would require the rewriting of the constitution; the reform and renewal of the electoral system, the judiciary, and other government institutions, especially the police; and the training and empowerment of democratic political parties, mass media, and civil society organizations, which have been heavily constrained during the Mubarak era. Egyptians might want to consider the next presidential term as a deliberately transitional and power-sharing government, under a relatively spare interim constitution, while a democratic process of dialogue and deliberation drafted a new permanent constitution. South Africa could serve as a model here; a newly elected democratic parliament could also serve as a Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution with wide popular participation and consultation.

Forging the rules and institutional arrangements of a transitional period will not be easy. Political stability will require a broadly inclusive process of negotiations that brings all key political stakeholders to the table, and that forges a political pact that ensures the loyalty of the army and security apparatus while gradually renewing its officer ranks and establishing civilian democratic control. No doubt there will be calls for retrospective justice to investigate the many abuses of human rights during the Mubarak era, but the historical experience of other transitions suggest that this task should be addressed with caution and deliberation, in a way that does not drive the surviving elements of the old regime into a posture of resistance and sabotage.

The challenge for the U.S. is to align itself squarely behind Egypt's aspirations for democracy without being so public, clumsy and abrupt in abandoning Mubarak that we provoke an anti-American backlash from among other regional allies. But if we have to choose between rulers and their people, it is time we started choosing the people. We need to quickly develop a strategy and commit new resources to assist Egyptian political parties, non-governmental organizations, civic education groups, and independent media to help them prepare the country for a period of protracted and unprecedented democratic change.

Egypt is entering the end of an era. The exit from power of Hosni Mubarak under pressure of volcanic popular protests will have wide repercussions throughout the Arab world. It will accelerate the momentum of democratic change in the region, and open the possibility of electoral democracy emerging in the Arab world's largest and most influential country. If Mubarak can be induced to exit peacefully and soon, and the way can be paved to a free and credible presidential election in September, the authoritarian exceptionalism of the Arab world may begin drawing to an end.

WASHINGTON - Hours before the judge in the latest Mikhail Khodorkovsky trial announced yet another guilty verdict last week, Russia's most prominent political prisoner was already being attacked in cyberspace.

No, Khodorkovsky's Web site, the main source of news about the trial for many Russians, was not being censored. Rather, it had been targeted by so-called denial-of-service attacks, with most of the site's visitors receiving a "page cannot be found" message in their browsers.

Such attacks are an increasingly popular tool for punishing one's opponents, as evidenced by the recent online campaign against American corporations like Amazon and PayPal for mistreating WikiLeaks. It's nearly impossible to trace the perpetrators; many denial-of-service attacks go underreported, as it's often hard to distinguish them from cases where a Web site has been overwhelmed by a huge number of hits. Although most of the sites eventually get back online, denial-of-service attacks rarely generate as much outrage as formal government attempts to filter information on the Internet.

In the past, repressive regimes have relied on Internet firewalls to block dissidents from spreading forbidden ideas; China has been particularly creative, while countries like Tunisia and Saudi Arabia are never far behind. But the pro-Kremlin cyberattackers who hit Kodorkovsky's Web site may reveal more about the future of Internet control than Beijing's practice of adapting traditional censorship to new technology.

Under the Russian model - what I refer to as "social control" - no formal, direct censorship is necessary. Armies of pro-government netizens - which often include freelancing amateurs and computer-savvy members of pro-Kremlin youth movements - take matters into their own hands and attack Web sites they don't like, making them inaccessible even to users in countries that practice no Internet censorship at all.

Cyberattacks are just one of the growing number of ways in which the Kremlin harnesses its supporters to influence Web content. Most of the country's prime Internet resources are owned by Kremlin-friendly oligarchs and government-controlled companies. These sites rarely hesitate to suspend users or delete blog posts if they cross the line set by the government.

The Kremlin is also aggressively exploiting the Internet to spread propaganda and bolster government popularity, sometimes with comical zeal. Just last summer Vladimir Putin ordered the installation of Web cameras - broadcasting over the Internet in real-time - to monitor progress on new housing projects for victims of the devastating forest fires. This made for great PR - but few journalists inquired whether the victims had computers to witness this noble exercise in transparency (they didn't). Russia's security services and police also profit from digital surveillance, using social networking sites to gather intelligence and gauge the popular mood.

The Kremlin in fact practices very little formal Internet censorship, preferring social control to technological constraints. There is a certain logic to this. Outright censorship hurts its image abroad: Cyberattacks are too ambiguous to make it into most foreign journalists' reports about Russia's worsening media climate. By allowing Kremlin-friendly companies and vigilantes to police the digital commons, the government doesn't have to fret over every critical blog post.

One reason so many foreign observers overlook the Kremlin's harnessing of denial-of-service attacks is that they are used to more blatant measures of Internet control. China's draconian efforts to filter the Internet - characterized by Wired magazine in a 1997 article as the "Great Firewall of China" - harken back to the strict censorship of the airways by Communist governments during the Cold War. Back then it was possible to keep out or at least cut down on the influence of foreign ideas by jamming Western broadcasts. The Internet, however, has proven to be far too amorphous to dominate. So its better to co-opt it as much as possible by enabling private companies and pro-government bloggers to engage in "comment warfare" with the Politburo's foes.

Meanwhile, China itself is quietly adopting many measures practiced in Russia. The Web site of the Norwegian Nobel Committee came under repeated cyberattacks after it gave the 2010 award to the jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. Many Chinese government officials are now asked to attend media training sessions and use their skills to help shape online public opinion rather than censor it.

In assessing the U.S. government's Internet freedom policy - announced a year ago by Hillary Clinton - one sees few signs that U.S. diplomats are aware of growing efforts by authoritarian governments to harness social forces to control the Internet. So far, most of Washington's efforts have been aimed at limiting the damage caused by technological control. But even here Washington has a spotty record: Just a few weeks ago the State Department gave an innovation award to Cisco, a company that played a key role in helping China build its firewall.

The eventual disappearance of Internet filtering in much of the world would count as a rather ambiguous achievement if it's replaced by an outburst of cyberattacks, an increase in the state's surveillance power, and an outpouring of insidious government propaganda. Policymakers need to stop viewing Internet control as just an outgrowth of the Cold War-era radio jamming and start paying attention to non-technological threats to online freedom.

Addressing the social dimension of Internet control would require political rather than technological solutions, but this is no good reason to cling to the outdated metaphor of the "Great Firewall."

Evgeny Morozov is a visiting scholar at Stanford University and the author of "The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom."