I read an article a few months ago (alas, I cannot find it now) about how economic conditions in Egypt's socialist-style economy were so ridiculously depressing that it was driving many well-educated Egyptians to fundamentalists mosques. They spend years in school and then can't find a job in their field, thanks to the government's incredibly naive employment policies. So, they waste away working at menial jobs while becoming ever more bitter, until they grow up to be Mr. Atta (who was well-educated, and flew a jumbo-jet into a building, in case you forgot). Obviously, the thing to do is let Egypt's economy shake-down and get into some sort of reasonable free-market system. Egypt has in fact been trying to do this very thing, but every little bump in the road makes people want to revert to the safety of the old system (in which you could never get fired).
This seems to be an excellent scenario for Ralph Peters' concept of favorable instability. But, as Mr. Peters points out, the US has a knee jerk reaction to keep the status quo, even to the tune of a couple billion dollars. I doubt our return on investment is going to be very high on this.
