When Armies Decide

Egypts military,calculating that it was no longer worth defending an 82-year-old,out-of-touch pharaoh,sided with the protesters on the street,at least for Act 1.

As the contagion of democracy protests spread in the Arab world last week,Bahrains far less disciplined forces drew two lessons from Egypt: if President Obama calls,hang up. And open fire early.

In both countries,as in nearly all police states,the key to change lies with the military. And the militarys leaders can be counted on to ask: whats in it for us,long and short term?

Egypts military leadership came to the same conclusion that South Koreas did in the 1980s and Indonesias did in the 1990s: the countrys top leader had suddenly changed from an asset to a liability. The military,with its business enterprises,to say nothing of its American aid and high-tech arms,required a transition that would let it retain power while allowing Washington to herald gradual,substantive reform.

In Bahrain,the military seems to have concluded that adapting to change would do them no goodthat the protesters were far too great a threat to their command of society. So the country that acts as host to Americas Fifth Fleet decided to ignore President Obamas advice,which it regarded as assisted suicide.

None of this came as much of a surprise to the White House,which last summer,at President Obamas request,began examining the vulnerability of these regimes and more recently began examining what makes a transition to democracy successful.

There are many different factors involved in the cases we have looked at: economic crises,ageing authoritarians,negotiated transitions between elites, said Michael McFaul,a top national security aide at the White House.

He spent the past few weeks churning out case studies for President Obama and the National Security Council,as it sought lessons about how to influence the confrontations that have engulfed close American allies and bitter adversaries. There is not one story line or a single model, said McFaul,There are many paths to democratic transition,and most of them are messy.

Egypt certainly started out that way. But American officials say they knew that Mubaraks days were numbered eight days into the crisis,when the military made clear that it simply would not fire on its own people.

You could almost hear them making the calculations in their heads, said one senior American official. Did they want to stick with an ageing,sick leader whose likely successor was his own son,who the military didnt trust? And we just kept repeating the mantra,Dont break the bond you have with your own people.

The military has long had a revered role in Egypt and its deep ties to the American military. A 30-year investment paid off as American generals,corporals and intelligence officers quietly called and e-mailed friends they had trained with.

But now comes the trickiest part,which is making the military hold to its promises to allow a civilian government to flourish. That will mean the military must give up its monopoly on power,and that isnt easy for any leader of a regime,especially one deeply invested in its countrys economya trait Egypts army shares with the Peoples Liberation Army in China.

The question is whether Egypts military can manage a transition to democracy,as the militaries of South Korea,Indonesia,the Philippines and Chile have.

South Korea is perhaps the clearest example of a good outcome for its citizens. The country is now among the most prosperous in the world. In the face of large street protests in the mid-1980s,the generals gradually allowed free elections.

Then there is Indonesia. General Suharto ruled for 31 yearsthen ran out of gas,just as Mubarak did. He lasted only two and a half weeks after street riots broke out in 1998,triggered by the Asian economic crisis.

After Suharto was finally forced out,it took the Indonesian military little more than a year to hold elections. But even in the worldss most populous Islamic nation,Karen Brooks,a former White House expert on Indonesia notes,the Islamic parties have remained a small minority,because once they were inside the system the party found itself participating in the same unseemly activities as everyone else,from corruption to deal-making.