It is pointless to pause for long before the stories, tales, scripts and fables being promoted, whose narrators claim to know the hidden side of what happened, and to be aware of the details of the decisions taken by the Egyptian President to remove the Chairman of the Military Council and former Defense Minister, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, and his Deputy and Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Sami Anan. Indeed, they are all being “distributed" through parties to the Egyptian political game, and they not so much contain information as are filled with lies and false claims, and are often aimed at being used to favor a specific faction or figure. Thus, fans of the Military Council insist that the Field Marshal's departure took place with his knowledge, and that he in fact asked for it after he had “done his duty" and even selected the new Defense Minister himself! Fans of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood considered what Morsi did to represent a stronger move than that of taking the decision to go to war in October 1973, or at least the decision he has taken to be more perilous than the measures taken by late President Anwar Sadat in May 1971, dubbed the “corrective revolution". As for those who oppose the Field Marshal, the Military Council and the Muslim Brotherhood, they promoted a conspiracy theory, and spoke of a deal based on a safe exit for Tantawi, Anan and some of the members of the Military Council without being held to account, in exchange for handing over the state to the Muslim Brotherhood. And to complete the picture, such a “cooked-up plot" would have taken place under American sponsorship. What matters most in all of this is that the exit of the Field Marshal and of Anan, and their receding into the background, has not resulted in any negative reactions, apart from some feeling upset over the way their exit took place. Thus, unlike what usually happens in other countries, the event has taken place calmly and the army, with all its formations, officers and members, has abided by the decisions issued without resistance, or even opposition or showing discontent. And even if there are a few secrets that are not yet known, this does not negate the scene of the Marshal and Anan receiving medals from the President, which shows that the two men have left office without resistance or even trying to stay, even if they were not completely satisfied. Perhaps the information about plans or arrangements made by Morsi to ensure the smoothness of their exit and facilitate the new appointments is true, or perhaps the Field Marshal and his commanders were from the start in a state of despair regarding their ability to continue. Yet the truth is that both of them, and perhaps with them the remaining members of the Military Council, have left office without any violent reactions, neither from them nor from their supporters in the street, or even without showing any feelings of anger they might be harboring. Also true is the fact that Tantawi's policies, his poor skill at times and slowness at others, as well as the mistaken way in which the Military Council has over a year a half dealt with issues that could have been smoothly resolved, and that turned under its rule into predicaments which led to clashes and casualties – all are matters that contributed to the state of indifference that has prevailed among the majority of Egyptians at the decision to remove Tantawi and Anan. Indeed, the Field Marshal, along with Anan and some of their colleagues from the Military Council, left after losing the support they had gained the day Mubarak resigned and throughout the 18 days that form the length of the Egyptian Revolution. And the more time passed during the transitional period, the more pressures increased on Tantawi and his Council, resulting in greater confusion and mistaken behavior in every direction. Moreover, the Military Council failed to gain the sympathy of or ally itself with the majority of the active forces on the scene able to move the street, despite the esteem in which it was held by what is known as the silent majority, which did not compensate for mistakes it committed that brought it to a situation where each of the parties competing on the Egyptian political stage considered Tantawi and the Military Council to be playing in favor of the other parties. Thus, referring Mubarak to the tribunal and jailing him along with some of the former regime's prominent figures lost Tantawi and his colleagues the sympathy of the “remnants" (of the former regime). And regardless of the reasons behind the clashes that took place with the revolutionary youth, the fact that there were casualties lost the Military Council and all of its members any sympathy they might have had on the part of the revolutionaries, and in fact created a constant state of enmity that became impossible to overcome. As for conspiracies with the Islamists, whether the Muslim Brotherhood or the Salafists, they were like a graph chart, rising at times and falling at others. Thus the relationship between the Islamists and Tantawi and the Military Council remained superficial and inconstant. Moreover, it seems that the Islamists realized that the Field Marshal and his colleagues were susceptible to pressures, and thus the weeks that preceded and followed the presidential elections witnessed large gatherings of Islamists in Tahrir Square who did not suffice themselves with demanding full powers for the new President, but also the removal of the Military Council, Tantawi and Anan. And so it was.
