CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS –

While arguing over the merits of continuing U.S. aid to Egypt, commentators and analysts tend to agree on two main points. First, there is a general consensus on what President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood got wrong. Second, virtually all Western observers are stressing the need for an inclusive government in Egypt. In the first point, Egypt offers a lesson to Iraq and, in the second, Iraq offers a lesson to Egypt. Together, they point to the direction U.S. policy should take.

Events in Egypt show that majoritarian democracy doesn't work in transitional societies. Even when a party has won a commanding electoral victory — which wasn't the case in Egypt — it must still seek continued legitimacy by addressing the needs and desires of those outside its direct constituency. Because of the weakness of other institutions in transitional societies, a strict majoritarian democracy is likely to leave certain populations more powerless than they would be in mature democracies. And political alienation breeds discontent and impatience, as we saw on Egypt's streets last week.

Morsi governed Egypt as if his slim electoral victory gave him a mandate to transform the country into the state that the Muslim Brotherhood envisioned, regardless of the wishes of the rest of Egyptians. Rather than seeking to build a national consensus for Egypt's path, he dismissed the opposition as powerless, and invested his energy in co-opting or marginalizing the security establishment and the judiciary — Egypt's two other bases of political power. His naked assertion of power at the end of last year to force through an Islamist constitution was, for many Egyptians, the last straw. Although the specific mode of Morsi's downfall — a military coup ushered in by popular protests — surprised many, the end of Egyptian tolerance for Morsi shocked few.