Could Egypt’s Crisis Doom the Arab Spring?
From the moment the Egyptian regime was toppled in February 2011, the nation’s military and its Islamic democrats were set on a collision course. Now we’re seeing the crash.
Aided by a Constitutional Court ruling rolling back parliamentary elections, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has dissolved parliament and appointed 100 “experts” to write a new constitution. For good measure, the military stripped the powerful Egyptian presidency of existing powers -- just in time, because the next day it became clear that Mohamed Mursi, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, had won the presidency. Parliament plans to convene next week with its own constitutional committee. Egypt is far beyond constitutional crisis: It is teetering on the edge of collapse.
For those who greeted last year’s Arab Spring with excitement and optimism, it may be surprising that the central conflict in Egyptian politics is between the military and the Islamists. After all, it was a cross-section of Egyptian society, galvanized and to some degree led by young secularists, that brought the country to a standstill and a long-serving dictator to his knees. In demanding freedom, Egypt seemed to have reclaimed its historic position at the vanguard of the Arab world.
But experienced observers knew that the Egyptian situation was far more complicated than it seemed from watching the grave and joyful protesters in Tahrir Square. For one thing, the protesters didn’t actually bring down Hosni Mubarak, the former dictator who suffered stroke on Tuesday. By refusing to leave the square even under intense and violent pressure from the police, they weakened the president drastically. It was the army that delivered the coup de grace.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-19/could-egypt-s-crisis-doom-the-arab-spring-.html
