Regardless of how one may view the latest developments in Egypt following the toppling of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) rule and President Mohamed Morsi, and the launching of a road map as per the announcement of Gen. Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, it is fair to say that the Egyptian incidents represent the strongest setback for the dreams of the Arab Spring that have prevailed over the past three years. What were the people dreaming of? - They were dreaming of leaders elected through the voting ballots where people would freely cast their votes. Some candidates would lose and some others would win; but at the end of the day, everyone would abide by the voting process and respect its outcome. This process would meet the aspirations for democratic societies and negate the prevailing idea that the Arab populations are unfit for democracy and for respecting the concept of power rotation. - They were dreaming of tolerant regimes where winners of a voting process do not believe that their victory grants them an exclusive right to own the country, monopolize power, and coerce others. This is based on a strong conviction rooted in the democratic process and implying that a country belongs to all the people and that a ruler may very well turn into an opponent in the near future. Thus, a ruler has no right to change the identity of the country so that it matches his partisan, religious, or political identity. - They were also dreaming of governments for which public interest and the improvement of daily livelihood represent a priority. Such dream governments would not prefer their ideological project over the national project and would not seek to serve their own agenda at the expense of people's interests. In this sense, we must say that the experience of the Arab Spring in Egypt was a failure that will have negative repercussions on other countries, including those countries that experienced revolutions or those that are still waiting for them. The Egyptian revolution – that constituted the second episode in the series of the Arab Spring – stirred the hopes of many Arabs. Thus, its failure will cause many people to lose hope in the possibility of a successful democratic transformation in our countries. This revolution's failure will also support the suspicions concerning the democratic "abilities" of our people and societies, meaning that we are people and societies that do not deserve this experience and are not ready to be part of it. All those who took part in the Egyptian experience, including the rulers and their opponents, are responsible for its failure. The MB failed to make good use of its victory. Instead of taking into account the old sensitivities regarding its political work within the Egyptian society and other Arab societies, it considered its victory as a permit allowing it to re-structure the institutions of the Egyptian state in a challenging manner and without the participation of the others. They failed to realize that the post revolution Egypt is now a divided society that requires a visionary ruler who should not be working on enhancing the schism. The Egyptian opposition (which is currently "in power") is also to blame. The Egyptian opposition movement failed to help the MB rule to succeed in any way. One might say at this point: why should the opponents of the MB help it succeed while their actual interest is to see it fail? In reality, the failure of this project is not only that of Mohamed Morsi and the Justice and the Development party. This is rather primarily a failure for the experience of the voting ballots and the democratic process away from the use of violence. Ousting the MB from power was a way to tell it that the democratic road is blocked and that it should be looking for other ways. This is the largest source of danger for the future of the democratic process in Egypt. A final word on the role of the Egyptian army is warranted, especially in light of yesterday's incidents in front of the Republican Guards headquarters in Cairo. Regardless of what you like to call the army's interference – whether you like to call it a "coup" as per Morsi's supporters; or a way of "protecting the legitimacy of the revolution" as per the supporters of the Salvation Front and the Tamarod movement – the army's staging of a military operation to protect one team in the face of the other in a heavily divided society like Egypt will eventually decrease the army's moral strength. In this sense, the army's taking part in separating the two conflicting parties in Egypt represented the biggest defeat for the political process that should have been the most important achievement of the January 25 revolution.
