What is happening in Port Said and in Mansoura, what happened in Cairo, Giza and Alexandria, what people think will happen in other Egyptian governorates, the inflamed street, the complications of the political crisis – all of them are phenomena of the rule of Doctor Mohamed Morsi over the past eight months. And hardly a day goes by without a discussion taking place on a television show about the return of the Egyptian army to the forefront of the scene once again, or an article being written about the reasons for the military institution refraining so far from intervening to put a stop to the campaigns being waged against the opposition and to the Muslim Brotherhood's rule of the country! And as the clash between those in power and the opposition escalates, there have been increasing demands, whether on the street or even in political forums, for the army to overthrow the ruling party – demands that have taken various forms, such as demonstrations, deputation campaigns, statements, formal appeals and other means by which the army could be called upon to intervene. And regardless of the reasons for calling upon the military institution, of the use for it to intervene politically once again, or of the likelihood of this in the first place, the most important aspect such a situation reflects is the dual failure of both those in power and in the opposition. Indeed, the Muslim Brotherhood, its political party the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), President Mohamed Morsi and his Islamist allies of various strands, as well as the official elite opposition of the Salvation Front, have not met with the approval of the general population. In fact, the credibility of both sides is being exhausted and is running out among the people, as is trust in the ability of those in power to follow a sensible policy that would bring the country out of its predicament, or in the ability of the opposition to change or even assess those in power. Thus the idea arose of turning to the side that could confront the Muslim Brotherhood and force the opposition to be sensible, and the desire appeared to call upon the army as a natural result of the failure of the Brotherhood in general and of those in power in particular, and of despair at the ineffectiveness of the deeds, words and “tweets" of prominent figures of the opposition. There are also those who considered the rule of the army to have been preferable, even in spite of the mistakes committed by the Military Council during the transitional period. Some have even reached the conviction that the failure of the opposition to mobilize, gather and build a popular force that could face the Islamists, and to force the President to retract any of his decisions that do not meet with approval, necessarily signifies that the army is the only force that is organized, lucid and does not seek after the limelight or after power, and can confront the Muslim Brotherhood politically, and even militarily if necessary! And between the Muslim Brotherhood denouncing calls for the army to intervene and some often very “vocal" revolutionary forces rejecting the return of the military to power, on the one hand, and on the other the ceiling of demands being raised so high as to make formal appeals to the army to save the people from the Brotherhood and from “Brotherhoodization", there has been no reaction on the part of the military institution, save for a few carefully worded statements signifying that there are no profound disagreements between the military institution and the presidency, that the army stands with legitimacy and the democratically elected President, yet not all the way, as supporting legitimacy stops at the limits of the people's interests and the safety of the nation, and that the army's intervention will become imperative when people's lives or the safety of society come under threat. This means that what is happening in the street now, despite the army's rejection of it and its reservations concerning the conduct of those in power or of the opposition, does not represent a strong enough motivation for it to intervene, and is being interpreted by the leaders of the military institution as part of the political struggle between those in power and those who oppose them, or a result of mistakes committed by all sides. And regardless of the abundance of analyses and the fever of theorizing and “chatter" that have arisen to chew over the issue, or the factors that would drive the army to intervene or prevent it from doing so, especially the stance taken by major powers and most prominently the United States, the truth of the matter that cannot be denied is that the army would certainly intervene to prevent a civil war, and would never intervene if its intervention were to be the cause of it. Indeed, no calls made at demonstrations, at conferences, on television shows, or in newspaper articles will make it enter into a confrontation with the President, his party and the group he is affiliated to if it is one which the army believes would pose a threat to the safety of society and cause people to panic. And neither the President nor his party or the group he is affiliated to will be able to prevent it from intervening if they were by their deeds to cause the nation to be threatened, or if their policies and their methods were to result in portents of a real civil war. In short, the army has no desire to take power, even if it takes great care to preserve its status and its influence, and it will not intervene unless it is absolutely necessary – which the army does not believe to be the case today. This is with the knowledge that the army receding into the background, after the removal of Tantawi and Annan, and the appointment of Colonel General Abdul Fatah Al-Sisi to the post of Defense Minister, has come after several blows suffered by the military institution as a result of its clash with revolutionary forces, and especially secular forces, some of the most prominent figures of which do not today hide their conviction that the army's inferno had been much sweeter than the Brotherhood's paradise, or let us say “renaissance".
