One was democracy. I pointed out that the challenge wasn’t just the sensitivity of addressing the issue in a repressive country; it was the fact that if there was ever a real election in Egypt, the Islamist party—the Muslim Brotherhood—would probably win. America tended to express support for the type of democratic activists who would get only a small percentage of the vote, and it made us less credible. Obama paused on this, then offered a formulation: The United States should welcome the legitimacy of all political movements, even those we disagree with, but we will also judge any political
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