With the Egyptian army’s ultimatum due to expire this afternoon there are obvious reasons to be fearful. Yesterday’s outbreaks of street violence – at least 23 reported dead and some 200 injured in clashes between supporters and opponents of President Morsi – brought a taste of what could be in store.

In the midst of this a certain mystique has built up around the military as an all-powerful force lurking in the background which is capable – almost single-handedly – of shaping Egyptian politics.

But that is almost certainly not how the generals view. No one disputes that the Egyptian military has clout but the revolution has brought new constraints to what it can do politically.

This is a dangerous time for Egypt – for its military as much as for anyone else. The generals have a lot to lose if they mis-handle the Morsi crisis, and for that reason they are likely to attempt something more sophisticated than a full-blooded coup.

The military’s room to manoeuvre is constrained in several ways:

• Since Mubarak’s fall the military has been going through a re-branding exercise – from regime’s protector to people’s friend. In the confrontation with Morsi it has set itself up asguarantor of the “will of the people”. Setting aside the question of who decides what the will of the people is, and by what means, this places the military in a tricky position: it can’t afford to lose public support.

• There is no reason to believe that political opinion within the military is any less divided than it is in the country at large. Its commanders cannot afford to take action that might jeopardise discipline or cause rifts internally. In this context it’s also worth pointing out that General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the military chief, is regarded as sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood.

• The generals also have to consider their relationship with the United States. The US, obviously, has supported various military juntas in the past but that would be difficult to justify in Egypt’s case where the Obama administration has adopted a clearly pro-democracy stance.

(For a more detailed discussion of the Egyptian military’s constraints see Robert Springborg’s article for Foreign Policy.)

Overall, this suggests the military will try to lead mainly from behind and that any new “transitional” government will be predominantly civilian. Most importantly, if it is to be seen as a genuine attempt to heal the country’s divisions, it will have to include a substantial number of Muslim Brotherhood supporters.

That is where the military could easily come unstuck. If the Brotherhood flatly refuses to play along, what then?
  

Posted by Brian Whitaker
Wednesday, 3 July 2013