Besides being a prime cause of poor economic growth, poor governance breeds corruption, which cripples investment, wastes resources, and diminishes confidence.
Growing up in Egypt, I never saw the country as divided as it is today. We now have two main political groupings: the Islamist parties and the civil, or liberal, political parties.
The mosque was the neighbourhood house of worship, but it was also the place where my high school friends and I came to study.
Let me put it this way: There is nothing in Islam that is fundamentally against the quest for knowledge.
On Sunday August 5, 2012, I was among a group of people who witnessed the Rover landing on Mars in real time at NASA's Caltech-managed Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
In adapting to life in the melting pot of America, I discovered that the same soft power of science has a huge influence in building bridges between cultures and religions - and has the potential to do so with the Muslim world.
Curiosity - the rover and the concept - is what science is all about: the quest to reveal the unknown.
America was and still is able to make the necessary changes to maintain research institutions that are the envy of the world.
I can tell you that the majority of the Egyptians I know, they think of a much wider spectrum of people than the Muslim Brotherhood.
Human resources are just tremendous in Egypt, but we need the science base; we need the correct science base.
The partnership between the United States and Egypt is crucial to both countries, and it can't be predicated on political manipulation and threats of withholding aid.
In addition to the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, which is crucial to U.S. interests both domestically and in the Middle East, the U.S. has had and will continue to need Egypt's collaboration in the war on terrorism.