Crowds of opponents of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi cheered as army helicopters bearing military flags roared over their heads in central Cairo's Tahrir Square. "The people, the police and the army are one hand," pensioner Mustafa yelled delightedly. It was not long ago that the throngs in Tahrir were taking a very different view of the Egyptian military.
They've turned out this week to complain that Morsi has failed to improve economic and social conditions in the North African country after a year in office. But the military's governing body, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces - which ruled Egypt from the 2011 uprising against former president Hosy Mubarak until Morsi took office - was just as helpless at solving the country's problems.
Demonstrators periodically filled Tahrir, chanting, "Down with military rule!" and an effigy of Field Marshal Hussein al-Tantawi, who was then head of the council, hung by the neck from a gantry in the square during protests. But with Morsi's failure to revive the faltering economy or bring order back to the streets, the army has regained its lustre.
It helps that it has always enjoyed a high reputation. School textbooks stress its role in wars against Israel. Most Egyptian men do compulsory service in the army, which is seen as representing the nation rather than any party, regime or religious group. But it is, despite that, a political power. "There are three basic forces: The Islamists - most importantly, the Muslim Brotherhood - the army and the street," said historian Khaled Fahmy of the American University in Cairo.
"None of these three big factions are strong enough to impose their will on the others," he said. "... At different times, different alliances form ... so what we saw [on Monday] was the police and army and revolutionaries against the Muslim Brothers." The military showed its teeth Monday when army chief Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi issued a 48-hour ultimatum to Morsi to end the political crisis with his opponents. Al-Sissi's deadline was set a day after hundreds of thousands of opposition protesters took to the streets demanding Morsi step down.
The power of what some call the "deep state" - a term used by Islamists supporting Morsi to indicate remnants of Mubarak's regime continuing to exist inside the government - showed too. State-run media quickly switched sides to support the opposition. The Interior Ministry, which controls the police and security agencies, declared its support for the military stance.
For Morsi's backers, this is an outrage. "The army doesn't have the right to take decisions," physician Yasser al-Shalabi, 39, said as he attended a large pro-Morsi rally Tuesday outside Cairo University. "Only the president has the right to set deadlines," he said. "[The ultimatum by] Al-Sissi brought all these people here."
Most Egyptian liberals sided with the anti-Morsi demonstrators and welcomed the army's intervention. Whatever reservations they might have had about the military stepping in against an elected leader were cast aside as they considered the tinderbox alternative - huge crowds seeking to bring down a president who made it clear he and his supporters would not budge.
There have been dissenting voices and warnings, however. "An objective reading of the army's communique clearly shows that the army has become the source of authority in Egypt, and the established values of democracy, constitutional principles and revolutionary aims are retreating," columnist Wael Qandil wrote in the liberal daily al-Shorouk.
For the demonstrators in Tahrir, joy at their victory outweighs these concerns. "Morsi will be gone in 48 hours," a businessman named Sayyed said Monday as he demonstrated in Tahrir. "It's the best solution now in this period." Many others would also be glad to see the back of the increasingly unpopular Morsi and relieved about a potential resolution to the political crisis.
That leaves one question: How will the Muslim Brotherhood, long oppressed under Mubarak and his predecessors, react when it turns out that winning elections does not work for them either? Analyst Khalil al-Anani of the Middle East Institute in Washington said that while there might be a backlash, it is unlikely to be violent. "I don't think the Brotherhood would react violently because they would stand to lose everything and forever," he said. "If there's a backlash, it's more likely to take the form of disputes and splits within the Brotherhood if Morsi goes," al-Anani said. "There might be disputes among the leadership but also between the leadership and the youth."
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