WASHINGTON – For all the gains radical Muslims appear to have been making in Egypt, many believe the military ultimately will not allow them to take over the government, according to a report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Some Egyptians in Washington sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood tell G2Bulletin that they fear this development in spite of the recent parliamentary gains by the Brotherhood and the more fundamentalist Salafist al-Nour party.

Now that the Brotherhood has nominated Khairat al-Shater to be its presidential candidate, the military has put up its own candidate, Omar Suleiman, the former spy chief to ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Given the public and often violent protests for a free and democratic government to replace the military-backed Mubarak government last year, Suleiman’s candidacy came as a major surprise.

According to al-Shater, the candidacy of Suleiman, 75, is “reinventing a new Mubarak regime with a new look.”

Suleiman initially said that he would not be a candidate but then raised more than 100,000 signatures, about four times the required names needed to run for the May 23-24 presidential election.

This development has been unsettling to Egyptians who thought that the military would accede to popular elections. Instead, G2Bulletin sources say that that the military is reluctant to give up power after 60 years and could stage a coup to preserve its position if Suleiman doesn’t win.

“If that happens,” one Egyptian told G2Bulletin, “there will be a civil war, and this time it will be quite bloody.”

Already, there are increasing indications that the Egyptian military may be manipulating events behind the scenes to retain its hold on power.

Following the overthrow of Mubarak in February 2011, there appeared to be a good working relationship between the Brotherhood and the council of military generals that now form the interim government.

The tide turned last November, however, after the near-majority of the Brotherhood in the parliament sought to have the army-appointed cabinet dismissed. (© 2012 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc. 04/16/12)