Also MLK did call specifically for a negotiated political settlement and end to the US involvement in the VN War, and not just for some nice peacenik utopian end to all wars forever.

Finally, in his last months MLK was going to organize a massive Poor People's March on D.C. intended to force Congress to enact specific programs in the economic justice area -- again, it wasn't just going to be about talking up economic justice with no specific follow through on legislation; in fact, they weren't going to leave until they got legislation passed.  Sort of like his famous 1963 March on Washington, which itself was not just to go there and make a rousing rhetorical case for civil rights for blacks, but it was connected closely to the Kennedy admin CR bill and getting something practical and specific done.

Ditto the march in Selma in 1965, also both broad and specific, there tied to the voting rights proposal.

I don't really see how you can argue otherwise.

Egypt may not turn into a perfect beacon of secular democracy after this.  But it wasn't one before this either.  So I don't really see how this is a potential "disaster".  Worst case scenario, things stay bad.  Best case scenario, they get better.

Factors that make me confident:

The author argues that while they MB says they have become "more pragmatic" in recent years, the US must engage them now.  

Some analysts dismiss these fears  pointing to the differences between a powerful Shia clergy in Iran and a Sunni Muslim Brotherhood. "Sunni Muslims don't have a doctrine of owing implicit obedience to their clergy, and the clergy are not as important in Sunni religious life as the Shiite Ayatollahs are in Iran," writes Juan Cole, a history professor at the University of Michigan. Also, experts point out that the Muslim Brotherhood is hardly the most important religious group in the country. The Quietist Salafist movement and Sufis are part of the main religious groups in the country.

However, CFR's Husain says Egypt going the Iran way is a genuine fear. "Then, secular democrats triggered a revolution only to be brushed aside by fundamentalists. Today, ordinary Egyptians lead demonstrations, but the Brotherhood waits in the background; an indispensable force in national life." He says the United States must begin to engage the Muslim Brotherhood today.

SNIP

Leslie Gelb, CFR's president emeritus who has served as a senior official in the U.S. State and Defense Departments, says if the brotherhood rose to power in Egypt,  it "would be calamitous for U.S. security." He adds: "It would be delusory to take the MB's democratic protestations at face value." Former CIA Officer Bruce Riedel, an expert of Middle East and South Asia, adds: "living with it won't be easy, but it should not be seen as inevitably our enemy." He recommends: "We need not demonize it nor endorse it."

But some analysts point to changing realities on the ground to advocate engagement with the organization. Isolation of the group, some argue, means Washington would lose leverage with any future governments the Brotherhood is a part of. CFR's Husain cautions Washington should neither isolate the group nor strengthen them unwittingly. Engagement, he says, must be based on issues. "Pluralism, human rights, and Israel must therefore be at the heart of talks with Egypt's Islamists."

Protests cannot continue every day all day for weeks or months.  Something will give - either Murbarak will leave, they will be forcefully stopped, or the protestors (little by little) will not come out every day and it will peter out.