Egypt has undergone a revolution of sorts. No, not the one last year, when weeks of mass protests forced the resignation of longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak.

That revolution had been substantially frustrated by the Egyptian military, which had been allied with Mubarak and which refused to relinquish power ― even as Egyptians were in the midst of exerting their unprecedented right to choose their new leader in June.

But over the weekend, the country’s newly elected president, Mohammed Morsi, cashiered the top generals and restored the governing prerogatives they had taken away from him.

That this is a major moment in modern Egyptian history, there can be no doubt. Whether it will turn out to be a good thing or a bad thing, though, is up in the dusty air over Cairo.

There are certainly reasons to take Morsi’s weekend measures as a victory for Egyptians who mobilized against the military regime and brought down Mubarak. After the citizens elected a new parliament dominated by Islamic parties, the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled it illegal and the generals shut it down. The military leaders also asserted their right to enact laws and to pick the members of a body assigned to draft a new constitution.

But Morsi ordered the parliament reinstated, refusing to cede one of the signal victories of the Arab Spring. Now, by getting rid of the senior generals, he appears to have established control of the government by a democratically chosen civilian ― himself.

That was the first surprise of the weekend. The second was that the military appears to be accepting his decree, in contrast to its previous resistance.

Speculation has run rampant, with some concluding that Morsi has used the support of younger, reform-minded officers to get rid of Mubarak’s cronies. Others, however, suspect the president has struck a backroom deal with the departing generals that will protect their interests. No one has forgotten that the military still has ample means to impede Morsi if it wants to. And the generals he has elevated to replace those he ousted may have considerable say over his policies going forward.

An equally relevant concern is that Morsi, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, is planning to turn Egypt into a theocratic state along the lines of Iran. The new president has acted to consolidate an immense amount of power in his office, which could be used for bad as well as good purposes. It’s by no means certain that the Muslim Brotherhood is committed to building a durable democracy that could evict it from power.

That said, any overreach by Morsi risks unleashing anew the societal forces that last year demanded freedom: There is some reassurance in knowing that while Morsi has won a round against the secular-minded military, he could provoke a military coup ― or conceivably another public uprising ― by pushing an extreme Islamic agenda.

And while upholding civilian authority and democratic processes is no guarantee of Morsi’s long-term intentions, it’s essential to creating a stable constitutional system. Our hope is that the sobering responsibilities of governing ― of making citizens content with his rule ― moderates any Morsi inclination to turn Cairo into a rigid Tehran West.

It has been plain since Mubarak’s fall that the top generals had no desire to defer to the people who so courageously rebelled against his regime. Morsi, having come to power in the nation’s first free presidential election, may someday eviscerate Egypt’s fledgling democracy.

But give him credit for not letting the military do so now.

(Chicago Tribune)
(MCT Information Services)