A civilian takeover in Egypt

Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi forced out two of the country’s top generals this week, in a bold attempt to wrest power from the junta that has dominated Egypt since the overthrow of dictator Hosni Mubarak. Taking advantage of a military debacle on the Sinai Peninsula, where jihadists killed 16 Egyptian border guards, Mursi ordered the retirement of Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the country’s defense minister and de facto ruler since last year’s revolution, and Gen. Sami Enan, the army’s chief of staff. Mursi—a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt’s first democratically elected president—also tore up a military decree that had stripped his office of many of its powers.

Egyptians may have a chance for democracy after all, said the Chicago Tribune in an editorial. Since Mubarak’s fall, his former military henchmen have done all they can to thwart the transition to civilian rule. The generals had the democratically elected parliament dismissed, and then tried to gut the presidency. But Mursi refused to “cede one of the signal victories of the Arab Spring,” and ordered parliament reinstated last month. Now, by removing the senior generals, he has “established control of the government by a democratically chosen civilian—himself.”

But what will he do with that power? asked Jonathan Tobin in CommentaryMagazine.com. The Obama administration saw the military as an effective check on the Brotherhood, but it underestimated “the Brotherhood’s will to come out on top.” Thanks to Mursi’s power play, anti-Western Islamists can now take “control over every sector of Egyptian society and government.”

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Don’t overestimate the Brotherhood’s reach, said Dan Murphy in CSMonitor.com. Other military figures, eager to find scapegoats for the Sinai disaster, likely approved the firing of Tantawi and Enan. Yes, this maneuver strengthens the president’s hand. But given the country’s perilous financial position and the military’s tenacious influence, it’s far from clear “how long that position of strength will last.”