The Post- Tahrir Turmoil In Egypt: The Coup And Its Aftermath

By Taj Hashmi

28 August, 2013
Countercurrents.org

Things are awfully bad and uncertain in “post- Tahrir ” Egypt since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak. Within a year of the elections that installed Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood as Egypt's first democratically elected president, on 3 rd July 2013 the military overthrew the government and arrested Morsi and his followers. Soon the world witnessed a massacre of Morsi supporters by the military. More than 1,000 civilians got killed in less than a week following the military crackdown of 14 th August. It is evident that Saudi Arabia and its allies were behind the coup, and behind the façade of ambivalence and aversion, America seems to have blessed the military takeover in consonance with its Middle East policy, which is all about neutralizing anti-American and anti-Israeli regimes, and controlling the oil fields across the region.

The crisis in Egypt is very much a part of other crises in the region, in Syria, Iraqi and elsewhere. Again, to paraphrase Napoleon, Egypt has re-emerged as the “most important country” for all the wrong reasons. As the country is likely to remain unstable – turbulent and fractured – for an indefinite period, so is the state of peace and order in the entire region. Conservative pro-American Gulf monarchies and Israel are likely to be the main beneficiaries of the military takeover in Egypt, while the bulk of Muslims worldwide are likely to remain angry with those behind the July coup in Egypt. The coup has also disillusioned democratic forces in the Muslim World and beyond about the prospect of democracy in the Middle East. Even if Egyptians by themselves restore democracy in the future, Arabs and Muslims are not likely to trust the West as the promoter of democracy and human rights.

Egypt went through its parliamentary elections in January 2012 electing deputies who mostly belong to “soft” Muslim Brotherhood (47%) and “hardcore” Islamist Salafists of the Nour Party (around 23%). However, soon the Egyptian military declared the elections null and void and dissolved the parliament. Meanwhile, Egypt had been thoroughly polarized between Islamists and non-Islamists. Most Egyptians want Shariah law and promise to “liberate” Egypt from “subservience to Israel and the West”. [i] Although Egyptians chose their leader for the “first time in 5,000 years”, [ii] the election of anti-American and anti-Israeli Islamists to power in this resource-poor populous country did not bode well for Western interests and peace in the region. Consequently, what was unthinkable happened in Egypt. The fall of Muslim Brotherhood Government was inevitable. A lthough the Brotherhood came to power through a fair democratic poll, they turned out to be more authoritarian than the Mubarak regime. We may agree with an Egyptian analyst: “The Egyptian public did not elect the Muslim Brotherhood to reproduce an authoritarian regime, but rather to realise the aims and aspirations of a revolution that had broken many taboos.” [iii]

On 3 rd July 2013 – following three days of mass demonstration against shortage of electricity and growing inflation under President Morsi's yearlong government at the Tahrir Square and elsewhere in Egypt – General Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt's Deputy Prime Minister and defence chief staged a pro-Saudi (and pro-American) military takeover of the country. The coup preceded and followed scores of huge anti-Morsi rallies by Egyptians across the country. Interestingly, while media and analysts across the world considered the removal of Morsi by the military a coup, considering the putsch a “power change” not “coup”, the Obama administration told the world that Egypt would shortly restore civilian governance and hold new democratic elections. [iv] Some American analysts even portrayed the Egyptian coup a “democratic military coup”. [v]

Although the coup was full of paradoxes and complexities, there was nothing spontaneous about it. The Generals, who represent the “Deep State” or the “Garrison State” of Egypt, violated military discipline by openly inciting anti-Morsi demonstrators to intensify their protests days before the military takeover on 3 rd July 2013. The brutal military crackdown in Cairo on 14 th August on pro-Morsi demonstrators “appears to have been a deliberate calculation of the military-appointed government to provoke violence from the Muslim Brotherhood”, observe leading Arab and Western scholars of Middle East history and politics. They believe, the objective of the crackdown “was to demonize the Islamists in the eyes of Egypt's broader populace, validate the July 3 ouster of the Islamist president and subvert any possibility that dialogue would reintegrate the Muslim Brotherhood into Egypt's mainstream politics”. [vi] In view of the severity of the military crackdown – selective and indiscriminate killing and arrests of Brotherhood followers and leaders, including the arrests of Morsi and the party chief Mohamed Badie – the Islamist party has been going through its worst phase in its history. Egypt since the 3 rd July coup and the military crackdown of 14 th July in 2013 represent a polarized and fractured polity. Christians and Islamists have been the worst victims of sectarian and military violence, respectively. Within days Egyptian court ordered the release for Mubarak, the ousted dictator of Egypt. The country seems to be rolling back to the past.

Thomas Friedman has aptly argued, Morsi's removal by the military-backed mass upsurge was the “third revolution” since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak by the “first” one. Facebook / Twitter savvy non-Islamist Egyptian youths staged the “first revolution” against the “suffocating dead hand” of the Mubarak regime, which was devoid of vision where around one-third of the Egyptians lived in poverty. The “deadheads” of Mubarak's successor, the incompetent Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, paved the way for the “second revolution”. People were so eager for a change for the better that they voted for the Islamist Brotherhood's Morsi as their President. And Morsi seemed to be more interested in consolidating the Brotherhood's grip on the nation rather than governing it. As Friedman argues, Morsi “drove Egypt into a dead end – so dead that Egyptians took to the streets on June 30 and virtually begged the military to oust Morsi”. [vii]

More than a thousand Egyptians – mostly Brotherhood supporters – were killed in the first week following the August 14 th military crackdown. Egypt may not have reached the Algeria situation, where the military prevented Islamists from taking office after they won the first round of elections in 1991, and around 200,000 died in the decade-long bloodbath that ensued. One may partially blame the Morsi Government for alienating the majority of Egyptians by flouting democratic reforms and by packing the Constitutional Committee with Islamists and rushing through electoral and other laws without due consent of the majority. Morsi also failed in stopping sectarian hatred against minorities and communal hate-crime against eight million Christians. However, that cannot excuse the generals for the coup and the bloodshed. As the Economist observes, “the generals' killing spree is a reckless denial of the lessons from the Arab spring”, that is the ordinary people yearn for dignity. [viii] The resignation of Mohamed El Baradi, Egypt's acting vice-president under the military regime, following the military crackdown of 14 th August, did not bode well for General al-Sisi and his men. Soon after the military crackdown, various Islamist parties – who had been opposed to Morsi – started opposing the generals and siding with the Brotherhood. Meanwhile, Egypt has been thoroughly polarized on sectarian, religious and ideological lines. It is least likely that Egypt will either become a Turkey or a Pakistan, but possibly another Somalia, Iraq or Syria in the coming years. Mubarak's plans to make his son Gamal Mubarak to succeed him as President did not go well with the people and the power hungry military. [ix] The so-called Deep State favoured Mubarak's removal; and after a year, it seems, the military regained its lost power. Nevertheless, it is too early to assume that the military has come to stay in the country for an indefinite period. We have no reason to believe that the mammoth mass upsurge that led to the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak was just a bubble.

The coup was not purely an outcome of the clash between liberal democracy and Islamist dogmatism; we have evidence of direct American financial and moral support for the anti-Morsi putsch. Aljazeera, among other news agencies, has produced documents showing America's direct involvement in the anti-Morsi movement. [x] The coup also reflected the victory of the pro-Saudi Islamists against the Brotherhood. [xi] However, within days after the coup, due to the inclusion of some liberal / secular technocrats, a “World Bank man”, and Christians in the military-backed government, the Nour Party denounced it as anti-Islamic. Despite the Nour Party's reservations about the new government, its foreign promoters, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates pledged $12 billion to the military regime. [xii] Whatever support President Morsi had from the pro-Brotherhood emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani was gone in June 2013 with the succession of the pro-Saudi prince, Sheikh Tamim, son of Sheikh Hamad al-Thani as the new emir of Qatar. No sooner had anti-Morsi protests erupted in Egypt, than the pro-Qatari Syrian rebel leader in exile Ghassan Hitto resigned under Saudi pressure. The rabidly anti-Shiite, anti-Hamas and anti-Brotherhood pro-Saudi Islamists took over the anti-Assad government in exile under the Syrian National Council. They also supported the anti-Morsi coup in Egypt. [xiii] We may agree with James Dorsey that:

Whatever government emerges from the current crisis will nevertheless govern a deeply divided country in which one substantial segment believes that the disruption of the democratic process was designed to exclude it from participation. The military-backed unruly coalition of anti-Morsi liberals, leftists, Salafis and remnants of the Mubarak regime has only common denominator: opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood. Its future is one of increased fracturing and dissolution. The opposition's disarray despite its ability to stage one of the largest protests in human history gave the military licence and ability to shape Egypt's future in its own mould. [xiv]

Then again, as Dorsey has argued, it is least likely that Egypt will stabilize under another round of military rule as the Egyptian army is not a reformist one like its counterparts in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, which played important role in the transition from autocracy to democracy. Again, Salafists and Brotherhood supporters in Egypt are least likely to collaborate with the military regime if it refuses any role to political Islam in the running of the country. Thus one is not sure if Egypt will go the Algerian way towards a prolonged, brutal and bloody civil war. [xv] In view of the faltering governance and dysfunctional democracy in post-Arab Spring Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, it would be an over-simplification to assume that the Arab Spring has failed, and the Arab World will remain pre-modern and autocratic for an indefinite period. As post-Soviet Russia and post-communist East Europe faltered after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Egyptians and other Arabs will also democratize in the coming years. We have reasons to believe that the Arab Spring was an awakening; and that “the real revolution is not so much in the street as in the mind…. Egyptians, among others, are learning that democracy is neither just a question of elections nor the ability to bring millions of protesters onto the street. Getting there was always bound to be messy, even bloody. The journey may take decades.” [xvi] One may cite the examples of France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal who did not become democracies overnight. They went through decades of authoritarian military rule – some of them up to the 1970s – before becoming democracies.

The regime-change movements on the one hand have weakened the strong hold of Arab autocracies, and on the other, have emboldened people in post-revolutionary Egypt and Tunisia. Arabs vying for democracy and human rights see Turkey as a role model. No longer considering Iran as an adversary, many Arabs are envious of Iranian men and women who have more freedom and better rights than they enjoy under Arab autocracies. Iran's persistent criticism of American hegemony and pro-American Israeli and Arab regimes has also been important catalysts in this regard. In view of this, it seems Henry Kissinger was right in registering his skepticism about the success of “revolutions” in the Arab World. He thought the “Arab Spring” was counterproductive and criticized America's reengaging militarily in countries in the name of “humanitarian intervention”:

The Arab Spring is widely presented as a regional, youth-led revolution on behalf of liberal democratic principles. Yet Libya is not ruled by such forces; it hardly continues as a state. Neither is Egypt, whose electoral majority (possibly permanent) is overwhelmingly Islamist. Nor do democrats seem to predominate in the Syrian opposition. The Arab League Consensus on Syria is not shaped by countries previously distinguished by the practice or advocacy of democracy. Rather, it largely reflects the millennium-old conflict between Shiite and Sunni and an attempt to reclaim Sunni dominance from a Shiite minority. It is also precisely why so many minority groups, such as Druzes, Kurds and Christians, are uneasy about regime change in Syria…. The revolution will have to be judged by its destination, not its origin; its outcome, not its proclamations. [xvii]

In view of the re-emergence of the Egyptian armed forces as the sole authorities of the country – on August 13, 2013, the “interim” government of Egypt appointed 19 generals as governors of Egyptian provinces (out of 25) – there is no reason to believe that General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi have any democratic agenda. [xviii] Despite Secretary Kerry's over-simplification that General al-Sisi was “restoring democracy” in Egypt, we have reasons to believe that he possibly wants “a hybrid regime that would combine Islamism with militarism” and that he “might see himself less as a custodian of Egypt's democratic future than as an Egyptian version of Muhammed Zia ul-Haq, the Pakistani general who seized power in 1977 and set about to ‘Islamicize' state and society in Pakistan.” [xix] However, according to John Esposito, the al-Sisi regime “ is acting very much like the government of Gamal Abdel Nasser in the past, seeking to crush and destroy the Brotherhood”. [xx] O ne scholar has aptly likened the military takeover with the victory of the reactionary pro-monarchy forces in France in 1848, where “fearful liberals abandoned democracy”; and in Egypt, “they're doing it again”. [xxi]

The removal of the Morsi government by the military, Islamists, liberal democrats and other combination of opposites, does not bode well either for the future of Egypt nor for the long-term prospect of peace between liberal democracy and radical Islamism, Arabs and Israel, and Muslims and the West. There are ominous signs of Egypt becoming another fractured and failed country. The Northern Sinai Peninsula had already become restive before the 14 th August military crackdown in Cairo. Anti-government Islamist insurgency and anti-Christian rioting by pro-Morsi forces had already destabilized the sub-region. [xxii] It seems, Egypt since the 3 rd July coup of 2013 – especially since the massacre of more than 1000 Brotherhood supporters by the military – is no longer the “mother of the Arab nation”; it is on the threshold becoming a hub of Islamist terrorism and Christian-Muslim conflict in the Arab World. Egypt is likely to follow the path of Algeria, which went through almost two decades of civil war in the wake of its tryst with democracy. We may agree with Robert Fisk that not only Egyptians but also other Arab Muslims in general will possibly never rely on democratic means as the best guarantor for freedom and dignity. Egypt is likely to take decades to recover from this trauma. [xxiii]

We cannot share the optimism of some analysts that with good governance by competent people under the military-backed government, Egypt will eventually hold democratic elections by re-integrating the Brotherhood into politics. General al-Sisi's confrontational policies towards Morsi and his followers do not agree with Friedman's optimism. In one day alone, on July 26 troops killed more than 100 Morsi supporters in Cairo. Meanwhile, the military regime has implicated Morsi in conspiracies with the Hamas to escape jail during the anti-Mubarak revolution in early 2011. Morsi also faces trial for murder and espionage. [xxiv] While the military regime was engaged in mass killing of Morsi supporters – mostly unarmed civilians – the US response was quite muted. The Obama administration only halted to the delivery of F-16s and Apache helicopters to Egypt but did not stop the $1.3 billion aid the US gives mainly to Egyptian military annually. [xxv] Then again, Egypt spends the grant money to buy military hardware solely from American corporations, such as Lockheed Martin, DRS Technologies, L-3 Communication Ocean Systems, and Boeing. [xxvi]

After the military slaughtered around 700 and wounded over 3,000 pro-Morsi demonstrators in Cairo in one single day, on 14 th August 2013, the Obama administration condemned the crackdown but announced no policy shift, no punitive measures or sanctions against Egypt. As Richard Falk argues, the Cairo Massacre “makes Western diplomatic call for compromise, inclusion, and mutual restraint irrelevant, and pathetic”. [xxvii] Obama's indecisive response to the coup – such as cancelling a scheduled joint-military exercise with Egypt – was nothing more than a slap on the wrist of the military junta. Meanwhile, Western governments and media have been telling the world about the so-called “declining” or even “non-existent” American leverage in Egypt. Some analysts think America's $1.3 billion military aid to Egypt to “ensure peace” between Egypt and Israel will not “buy democracy” in Egypt as its faltering economy needs much more than that paltry amount. They think Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE (who pledged $12 billion to Egypt's junta) have more leverage on Egypt than America. [xxviii] Although the $1.3 billion US aid seems like a pittance for an economy of $256 billion, yet this aid is vital for Egypt with regard to acquiring latest military hardware and spare parts for its arsenal. [xxix]

As to why America has failed to bring peace and order in the Middle East requires an understanding of America's declining hegemony in the Muslim World, along with its fuzzy understanding of its socio-political crises– where crisis seems to be a better expression than problem – and Washington's convoluted-cum-failed strategies since the end of World War II. None of the post-Cold War American Presidents could resolve the Middle East crises not only due to the overpowering influence of the Military-Industrial Complex and the Israel Lobby, but also because of their state of convolutions or twisted logic. Obama grossly overestimated the “liberal” Islamist Muslim Brotherhood's capabilities in ushering in democracy in Egypt by underestimating the level of Saudi dislike for the Brotherhood and its ilk. Obama also took too lightly the impact of Israeli opposition to the removal of Mubarak from power. Instead of stopping's Israel's non-stop Jewish Settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory (which Israel occupied in 1967), Obama tries to make peace between Israelis and Palestinians in his second term. Meanwhile, America's allies, clients and partners in the region – Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egyptian armed forces – played their respective roles in the removal of “Liberal Islamist” Morsi from power.

Our understanding of the US leverage in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf kingdoms since the end of World War II belies the assertion that Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Gulf could be that assertive and independent to support the Egyptian junta in defiance of America. It is noteworthy that while Saudi Arabia has been promoting Islamist militancy by “ pouring millions-of-dollars-worth of weaponry into Al Qaeda and other Takfiri networks … in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Libya through nihilistic sectarianism” to counter and defeat Iranian / Shiite influence in the Arab World, [xxx] in Egypt, as it supported the anti-Brotherhood regime of Hosni Mubarak, so has it been solidly behind the generals who toppled Islamist Morsi government in July 2013. Had Morsi been soft on Saudi Arabia, US and Israel, the pro-military Gulf regimes would have taken a different policy towards the Egyptian junta.

As conservative Gulf monarchies are unhappy with America's support for regime-change in Egypt, so is Israel not happy about the overthrow of the Mubarak regime in Egypt. Israel has reasons to worry about a democratic Egypt's unwillingness to respect the peace treaty in the future, which another Egyptian despot, the late Anwar Sadat signed with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1978. Soon after the Cairo Massacre of August 14 th , blaming Israel for the military takeover, Prime Minster Erdogan of Turkey claimed he had evidence to support this assertion. He believed Israel and its allies staged the coup to safeguard Israel's long-term security interests. [xxxi] It is noteworthy that the Muslim Brotherhood declared that once elected to power, it would scrap the treaty. In view of the growing popularity of Islamism in Egypt, it is no longer a question about if but how soon the Islamists will be eventually stirring up Egypt, may be through terrorism and insurgency.

Most importantly, although the Arab Spring has overthrown only a handful of Arab regimes, the wind of change is blowing fast to weaken the already de-legitimized Arab autocracies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE. They will sustain as long as they have the oil money and American troops to support them. Having 25 per cent youth unemployment, growing population pressure and mass disapproval of America among Arab population, autocratic pro-American Arab regimes do not have good prospects in the coming years. One Brookings Institution opinion poll in October 2011 in five Arab countries –Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon and UAE – revealed that more than 70 per cent of Arabs support the Arab Spring and dislike America. Only around 35 per cent of Arabs consider Iran a threat, while the bulk of them consider Turkey their role model. [xxxii]

American State Department has been consistently myopic with regard to its Middle East policy. Far from reflecting American's core values in regards to justice, peace and human rights, American foreign policy has been mostly protecting the interests of America's military, big business and the overpowering Israel Lobby. American-sponsored regime-changes in the Muslim World, which in violation of democracy and/or human rights and sovereignty of nation states in Syria (1949-1955), Iran (1953), Indonesia (1965), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003) and among others, Libya (2011), have neither benefitted America's long-term interests nor have they stabilized these countries. America's double standards and selective support for regime change across the world since long are also problematic. While Washington favoured the successive regime changes in Egypt in the recent past – in 2011, Obama asked Mubarak to step down; and in 2013, acquiesced in to the overthrow of Morsi – it is opposed to the majority Shiite population's popular resistance against the Sunni autocracy in Bahrain. America also turned a blind eye to the Saudi military intervention in Bahrain to suppress the mass upsurge against autocracy in March 2011.

The removal of the Islamist Morsi seemed to have weakened anti-Assad rebels in Syria as well as the anti-Israeli Hamas in Gaza. It's noteworthy that Hamas's support for pro-Saudi Syrian rebels has alienated Iran from this Sunni Islamist outfit as well. [xxxiii] The Egyptian military regime's crackdown on the smuggling tunnels led to the sudden shortage of food and other necessary goods in Gaza. Iran took full advantage of the situation. Pro-Iranian militant Islamic Jihad extended generous help to the Palestinian groups in Gaza. Many Hamas militants swelled the ranks of the pro-Iranian Islamist outfit. The Islamic Jihad also became influential in Syria. Unlike Hamas, which went against the Syrian President Assad and left Syria, the Islamic Jihad stayed back in Syria to defend the Assad regime. [xxxiv] It is noteworthy that after the removal of Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots across the Arab World – especially Morocco, Tunisia, Syria and Jordan – started distancing themselves from the “mother” organization, for Morsi's “mistakes”. Morsi is said to have gone too fast with his reformist agenda to lose power. [xxxv]

In sum, America is in a catch-22 situation over Egypt. On the one hand, it cannot abandon Egypt by totally withdrawing all aid to the detriment of moderate, pro-democracy forces in the country. The military regime's regional allies and promoters, including Saudi Arabia and UAE, are not going to aid Egypt on a long-term basis. Undoubtedly, Egypt will suffer without Western aid, investment, trade and tourists; then again, aiding the military regime would tantamount to helping anti-democratic forces and Islamist extremism, in the long run. Nevertheless, we may agree with some analysts that although Mohamed Morsi's government “rammed through an unrepresentative constitution” and promoted intolerance, restricted rights, controlled the judiciary and enshrined an unfair electoral system, yet America should not support the military regime that reversed the democratic transition in Egypt. America must realize that millions of anti-Morsi protesters wanted “to reset the shaky democratic process – not to reverse it”; and that America must distance itself from the military regime and stop funding it. [xxxviii] Meanwhile, as discussed earlier, both political Islam and anti-Americanism have become integral parts of the psyche of the Egyptian polity. The high rates of unemployment, illiteracy and poverty also do not bode well for the country. While one-quarter of the Egyptians live below the poverty line – around 70 per cent in the rural areas – illiteracy runs at more than 70 per cent in the countryside. [xxxix]

Last but not least, Egypt is going through turmoil and a class war, which is likely to escalate further into an all-out civil war and regional conflict to hard hit American, Israeli and Western interests. As Chris Hedges argues: “ What is happening in Egypt is a precursor to a wider global war between the world's elites and the world's poor, a war caused by diminishing resources, chronic unemployment and underemployment, overpopulation, declining crop yields caused by climate change, and rising food prices.” [xl] As we know, while r adical Islam is the last refuge of many Muslim poor, their rituals and faith in the hereafter keep millions of them from despair. The organized attacks on the Muslim Brotherhood (which is quite popular among urban and rural poor Egyptians) by the military and its urban supporters, including minority Christians, will further polarize the country dragging it into a long war of attrition with itself and its neighbours.

Taj Hashmi teaches at Austin Peay State University Clarksville, Tennessee Email: [email protected]

[i] “Egypt's presidential race: Battle of the beards”, The Economist , April 7 th 2012

[ii] Headline in London's Daily Telegraph , 23 May 2012

[iii] Azmi Ashour , “Islamist clash with society”, Al-Ahram , August 25, 2013

[iv] Bradley Klapper, “ Obama Administration Officials: No Coup In Egypt”, Huffington Post, July 25, 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/25/obama-egypt_n_3653775.html?view=print&comm_ref=false ( accessed July 26, 2013)

[v] Joshua Keating , “ Was Egypt a 'Democratic Coup'? ” Foreign Policy July 17, 2013 , http://8.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/07/17/democratic_coups_revisited (accessed July 26, 2013)

[vi] Rick Gladstone, “Attacks on Protesters in Cairo Were Calculated to Provoke, Some Say”, New York Times , August 16, 2013

[vii] Thomas Friedman, “Egypt's Three Revolutions”, New York Times , July 24, 2013

[viii] “The battle for Egypt”, Economist , August 17 th 2013

[ix] Larbi Sadiki, Like Father, Like Son: Dynastic Republicanism in the Middle East”, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, http://carnegieendowment.org/files/dynastic_republicanism.pdf (accessed August 25, 2013); Gregory Aftandilian, “Presidential Succession Scenarios in Egypt and their Impact on U.S.-Egypt Strategic Relations”, External Research Associate program Monograph, Strategic Studies Institute, September 2011 http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=1084 (accessed August 25, 2013); Walter Russell Mead, “Our Failed Grand Strategy”, Wall Street Journal , Saturday-Sunday August 24-25, 2013

[x] “Exclusive: US bankrolled anti-Morsi activists: Documents reveal US money trail to Egyptian groups that pressed for president's removal”, Aljazeera English, 10 July 2013, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/07/2013710113522489801.html (accessed July 27, 2013)

[xi] James M. Dorsey, “The Struggle for Egypt: Saudi Arabia's Regional Role”, RSIS Commentary #130, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 16 July 2013

[xii] “Egypt after the coup: The struggle to restore calm”, Economist , July 20 th 2013

[xiii] James M. Dorsey, “The Struggle for Egypt: Saudi Arabia's Regional Role”, RSIS Commentary #130, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 16 July 2013

[xiv] James M. Dorsey, “Facing One's Demons: The Egyptian Military and the Brotherhood at a Crossroads”, Middle East Insights #98, Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore, 26 July 2013 (accessed July 26, 2013)

[xv] Ibid

[xvi] “Has the Arab spring failed?”, Economist , July 13 th 2013

[xvii] Henry A. Kissinger, “A new doctrine of intervention?”, Washington Post , March 30, 2012

[xviii] “ Appointment of 19 Generals as Provincial Governors Raises Fears in Egypt”, New York Times , August 14, 2013

[xix] Robert Springborg, “ Sisi's Islamist Agenda for Egypt: The General's Radical Political Vision”, Foreign Affairs, July 28, 2013 http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139605/robert-springborg/sisis-islamist-agenda-for-egypt?cid=nlc-this_week_on_foreign_affairs-080113-sisis_islamist_agenda_for_egyp_3-080113&sp_mid=42208438&sp_rid=dGFqX2hhc2htaUBob3RtYWlsLmNvbQS2 (accessed August 2, 2013)

[xx] John Esposito, “Egypt: A new banana republic?”, Aljazeera.com, 25 August 2013 http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/08/201382512315443971.html (accessed August 27, 2013)

[xxi] Sheri Barman, “Marx's Lesson for the Muslim Brothers”, New York Times , August 11, 2013

[xxii] “Lawless Sinai Shows Risks Rising in Fractured Egypt”, New York Times , August 11, 2013

[xxiv] “Egyptians Rally as Morsi Accused of Murder”, Wall Street Journal , July 27, 2013

[xxv] “White House Response Muted to New Mass Killing of Egyptian Protesters”, New York Times, July 29, 2013

[xxvi] Kyle Kim, “Here are the top 10 American Corporations profiting from Egypt's military”, Global Post, August 16, 2013 http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/130816/top-10-american-corporations-egypt-military-us-aid (accessed August 20, 2013)

[xxviii] Rod Nordland, “Saudi Arabia Vows to Back Egypt's Rulers: Undercutting Leverage of U.S. Over Cairo” and Steven Simon, “America Has No Leverage in Egypt”, New York Times , August 20, 2013

[xxix] Eric Schmitt, “Cairo Military Firmly Hooked to U.S. Lifeline”, New York Times , August 21, 2013

[xxx] Finian Cunningham, “Saudi rulers pour money into arming militants in region”, Press TV (Ireland), August 10, 2013 http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/10/318030/saudi-rulers-sponsor-militants-in-region/ (accessed August 20, 2013)

[xxxii] Shibly Telhami, “The 2011 Arab Public Opinion Poll”, Brookings Institution November 2011, http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2011/1121_arab_public_opinion_telhami.aspx (accessed May 10, 2012)

[xxxiii] “Pressure Rises on Hamas As Patrons' Support Fades: Islamists' Sudden Ouster in Egypt Ruptures Lifeline for Gaza's Militant Rulers”, New York Times , August 24, 2013; Lihi Ben Shitrit, Mahmoud Jaraba, “ Hamas in the Post-Morsi Period”, Sada , Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, August 1, 2013 http://carnegieendowment.org/sada/2013/08/01/hamas-in-post-morsi-period/gh2c (accessed August 1, 2013)

[xxxiv] “In Gaza, Iran Finds an Ally More - Agreeable Than Hamas”, New York Times , August 1, 2013

[xxxv] Raphaël Lefèvre, “A Falling-Out Among Brothers?”, Sada, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, July 30, 2013 http://carnegieendowment.org/sada/2013/07/30/falling-out-among-brothers/ggtj (accessed August 1, 2013)

[xxxvi] Ross Douthat, “Let Our Client Go”, New York Times , August 18, 2013

[xxxvii] “Egypt Military Cites Religion To Quell Ranks: Seeking to Justify Attacks on Civilians”, New York Times , August 26, 2013

[xxxviii] Tamara Cofman Wittes and Amy Hawthorne, “US should suspend funds to the Egyptian military”, Boston Globe , August 22, 2013

[xxxix] “Poverty rate rises in Egypt, widening gap between rich and poor: CAPMAS”, Ahram Online , Thursday 29 Nov 2012 http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/3/12/59433/Business/Economy/Poverty-rate-rises-in-Egypt,-widening-gap-between-.aspx (accessed August 26, 2013); Chris Hedges, “ Murdering The Wretched Of The Earth”, truthdig.com, August 14, 2013, http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/murdering_the_wretched_of_the_earth_20130814/ (accessed August 26, 2013)

[xl] Chris Hedges, “ Murdering The Wretched Of The Earth”, truthdig.com, August 14, 2013, http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/murdering_the_wretched_of_the_earth_20130814/ (accessed August 26, 2013)

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