Ruel Marc Gerecht has an excellent piece on Egypt on the Weekly Standard web page. He is a former CIA agent and expert on the Middle East. He speaks Farsi and, probably, Arabic. I read his book on Iran when he was still anonymous. He reminds me of an important fact. Democracy in Egypt may have a better chance because Sunni Islam does not have a hierarchy of clerics. A book on Iran that I read recently made the comparison that Shia Islam is like the Catholic Church with a strongly hierarchical structure, while Sunni Islam is more like the Protestant churches, in which the individual is encouraged to read the Bible and draw his own conclusions. Few recognize the difference. The Sunni structure may be more amenable to democracy, especially in a more modernized country like Egypt with a 6% growth rate in GDP.
Read the article as it is excellent and written by someone who knows what he is talking about.