On July 27, police slaughtered 82 Morsi supporters to break up one protest. They used live ammunition and shot to kill nonviolent demonstrators. In response, the Obama Administration muttered a few words lacking any significance. Imagine the outcry from Washington and the mass media had the slaughter taken place in Beijing, Moscow, or Caracas.
The conservative Economist magazine noted Aug. 3, “the new government is resurrecting the hated arms of Hosni Mubarak’s security state…. The liberal Egyptians who teamed up with the army to oust Mr. Morsi will come to regret their enthusiasm.”
Among such liberals, reported Los Angeles Times correspondent Jeffrey Fleishman on July 3, was “Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, who once vilified army control, [but was] now asking the generals to reenter the scene in a moment of opportunity for both. ‘Every minute that passes without the armed forces intervention to perform its duties and protect the lives of Egyptians will waste more blood, especially since the person in the presidential position has lost his legitimacy and eligibility, and maybe even his mind,’ ElBaradei said.”
For his selfless efforts, ElBaradei has been promoted to be the junta’s “Vice President for Foreign Affairs,” and from this exalted position he is now a big voice in the “reconciliation” campaign. Once the MB and its many millions of supporters “understand that Morsi failed”—that is, accept defeat —”they should continue to be part of the political process” and participate in the nation’s political affairs.
Some opposition groups stayed away from Sisi’s provocative military rally, such as April 6 youth group. The Revolutionary Socialists, a Trotskyist formation, backed the anti-Morsi coup but declared: “Giving the army a popular mandate to finish off the Muslim Brotherhood will inevitably lead to the consolidation of the regime which the revolution arose to overthrow. We must use the downfall of the Brotherhood to deepen the revolution, not to support the regime.”
The New York Times noted in an editorial on July 31: “Whatever Egypt’s new military strongman… thought he was doing by summoning people to Tahrir Square [July 26] to demand a ‘mandate’ to fight terrorism, the result was to undermine Egypt’s prospects for stability even further. Whatever self-described pro-democracy groups thought they were doing by endorsing his call, the result was to strengthen the military and inflame raw divisions between civilian parties.”
The pro-military Tamarod—a youthful key group in building for the overthrow—encouraged all the opposition to attend Sisi’s rally. Tamarod (the name translates into “mutiny” or “rebellion,” depending on usage) justly rose to fame after collecting multi-millions of signatures demanding the ouster of Morsi, then by calling for the huge June 30 rally that drew many millions across the country. This protest provided an immediate excuse for Sisi to publicly give Morsi 48 hours to meet opposition demands or be removed.
Writing in the July 22 New Yorker, author Peter Hessler suggested the Tamarod was convinced beforehand that the armed forces would intervene after the protest. During interviews in the Tamarod office just before the coup, he asked how they knew this would happen, and was told: “We know our army.” One source of this knowledge, undoubtedly shared with a number of groups, were the hints of a takeover emanating from some army officers for a few months and days before the coup, including from Sisi.
Tamarod maintains it has no outside funding for the extensive petition campaign, but a millionaire businessman subsequently took credit for the funding, saying the youthful organizers may not have known where it came from. The group says 22 million people signed petitions, but there has not been an independent count.
It is ironic that the military—formerly loathed for upholding the dictatorship for decades, then further reviled during its controversial 17-month governance until Morsi took office—is now supported by nearly the entire opposition. The officer corps only changed sides in 2011 to preserve and increase its power and privileges, rising to the occasion again in 2013 to enhance its position.
General Sisi, who is described as a dedicated Islamist, is now adored by multitudes in the increasingly national chauvinist atmosphere engulfing the opposition, most members of which have averted their eyes to the murderous violence by military and police units against Morsi demonstrators. Rumors abound that Sisi himself is considering a run for president .
New York Times Cairo correspondent David Kirkpatrick reported on July 16 that in “the square where liberals and Islamists once chanted together for democracy, demonstrators now carry posters hailing as a national hero the general who ousted the country’s first elected president…. The voices on the left who might be expected to raise alarms about the military’s ouster of a freely elected government are instead reveling in what they see as the country’s escape from the threat that an Islamist majority would steadily push Egypt to the right.”
Both those who applaud or resist the coup claim to support electoral democracy and the creation of a better society for Egypt’s 83 million people. From a left perspective, the various points of view about Morsi’s ejection revolve around one main question: Is a military-led coup against an elected government, backed by millions of demonstrators who prefer to elect another government (and could have done so in three years) — a progressive or regressive change?
The opposition forces claim theirs is a progressive step forward, and that the military “joined with the masses” to oust a “failed” regime. The Muslim Brotherhood, by far the country’s largest political organization, maintains that a regressive military coup illegally destroyed a democratically elected government and jailed its leaders.
In order to provide context for determining whether this is a progressive or regressive coup, it is important to understand whether there have been changes in the “deep state” power relations since the days of the dictatorship in four key areas — the military, the ruling class, the bureaucracy and the security forces. This will be followed by a discussion of the MB government’s year in office, the possible reasons for the coup, the politics and actions of the military and civil opposition, the needs of the Egyptian people, and the role of various countries in and around the Middle East.
1. The military has not changed. It has enjoyed near autonomy and virtual control of the government, openly or behind the scenes, for some 60 years, beginning as a left exponent of pan-Arab socialism and developing close relations with the Soviet Union. During the 1970s, President Anwar Sadat broke with Moscow in order to develop closer relations with the United States. Since that time Cairo has become increasingly subject to American influence, receiving cash subsidies, training, equipment, international backing and guidance from Washington.
The armed forces were the power behind the dictatorial throne of President Mubarak, a former air force general, from 1981 to 2011, when he was ousted by the military in league with mass popular demonstrations seeking Western-type democratic elections. As soon as it was understood American interests would not be subverted, President Obama dropped Mubarak. The military continued as the ultimate power behind the democratic presidency of Morsi until he, too, was overthrown. The military always claims it does not want to be involved in the politics of running the country, but it has every intention of continuing its traditional role in the next government.
Gen. Sisi, who has just named himself first deputy prime minister as well as retaining his position of defense minister and head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), received his master’s degree at the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania in 2006. Last year, the pro-opposition newspaper al-Tahrir reported that Sisi had “strong ties with U.S. officials on both diplomatic and military levels.” Doubtless, both the Pentagon and SCAF communicate daily these days.
2. The ruling class has not changed. Perhaps a few Islamist millionaires who honestly supported the Morsi government will no longer be welcome, but the moneyed interests, the bankers, the big investors, the corporate heads, the owners of the mass media, the military leaders and the security chiefs will remain in place. Virtually all supported Mubarak during his long years in power. They easily survived the transition to Morsi as they will the next regime, probably expanding their powers in the process.
3. The government bureaucracy has not changed. While heads of various government departments were mostly replaced when Morsi took power last year, and will be so again under the new regime, the basic organization and politics of the bureaucracy remains very similar to the Mubarak years. Morsi had to make due with a long-established officialdom that knew the ropes (as he didn’t), and which largely opposed him. The New York Times on July 17 pointed out there is a “widespread perception that Egypt’s sprawling state bureaucracy had stopped cooperating with Mr. Morsi” before the latest coup.
4. The security forces have not changed. The national police and other security forces were only formally under Morsi government control. They remained largely the same repressive apparatus that Mubarak built to control the population. They fought actively during the first uprising in 2011to oppose the demonstrations against dictatorial authority but often turned their backs when MB facilities were trashed by anti-Morsi protestors. Morsi’s interior minister, Mohamed Ibrahim (a former general with close ties to the military), who did nothing to reform Mubarak’s brutal security and police apparatus, was reappointed to his position by the new government. In essence, according to The Economist on July 6, “since the 2011 revolution, Egypt’s police force has abandoned many of its duties, helping generate a threefold surge in serious crime.” They appear to have returned with a vengeance.
