Be careful what you wish for ...

... because you just might get it.

This editorial in yesterday's Washington Times demonstrates the downside of free elections in the Middle East.

In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is poised to make significant gains in the ongoing parliamentary voting process currently taking place. The Brotherhood, which claims it renounced violence in the 1970s (but we know better, don't we?), draws support from all over the Arab world and aims to establish an Islamic state which would be openly hostile to both the US and Israel.

Despite Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's efforts to keep the Brotherhood down, his crackdown on democratic freedoms have meant that over time, the only place where it is safe to dissent in Egypt - and many other Arab countries, for that matter - is in the mosque. This naturally leads to religious-based, Islamic extremist groups like the Brotherhood emerging in the public mind as the best and in fact only possible option for protest (as Daniel Benjamin and Stephen Simon point out in their book "The Next Attack", a book reviewed in this space on Friday).

How unfortunate it would be for the West if a democratically-elected government in such a key country like Egypt would be one to provide shelter and support for terrorists. Ironically, that's part and parcel of the risk involved in expanding democracy in the Middle East.