The Islamist Flirtation

Politics can offer some strange second acts. Just ask Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel laureate turned would-be presidential candidate who is now flirting with joining Egypt’s main Islamist party. Since leaving his post as director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in December, the 67-year-old diplomat has dipped his toe into electoral politics in his ...

By , vice president for policy at the Washington-based American Foreign Policy Council.
-/AFP/Getty Images
-/AFP/Getty Images
-/AFP/Getty Images

Politics can offer some strange second acts.

Politics can offer some strange second acts.

Just ask Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel laureate turned would-be presidential candidate who is now flirting with joining Egypt’s main Islamist party. Since leaving his post as director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in December, the 67-year-old diplomat has dipped his toe into electoral politics in his home country of Egypt. While still notional, ElBaradei’s possible candidacy in the country’s 2011 presidential election has galvanized Egypt’s long-moribund political opposition.

Ilan Berman is vice president for policy at the Washington-based American Foreign Policy Council.

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