The thing about Islamists is that they just can’t help themselves. Mohammed Mursi’s stock was riding high in certain quarters shortly after he slapped down Hamas in Gaza and avoided a full-scale confrontation with Israel. Foreign policy panjandrums in London and Washington who tout fashionable theories of a ‘moderate Muslim Brotherhood’ felt vindicated in their convictions, arguing the group is really just an Arab version of European Christian Democrats.
Yet so attracted is the Brotherhood to the clarion call of reaction that after the ceasefire, Mursi instantly seized the moment to reveal his proclivity for authoritarianism. There is now no authority in Egypt that can revoke the president’s decisions while he is also empowered to do whatever is needed to ‘preserve the revolution and safeguard national security’. These terms will be widely constructed, leading many Egyptians to regard them as opening the door to a new dictatorship.
Mubarak employed similar ambiguities to consolidate his control, ruling Egypt with an Emergency Law after the assassination of Anwar Sadat.
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