Military Reasserts Its Allegiance to Its Privileges

By BEN HUBBARD, NYT

CAIRO — For most of his year in power, President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood thought they had tamed Egypt’s military, forcing out top generals and reaching a deal with their successors that protected the armed forces from civilian oversight.

That deal collapsed this week.

With tanks and soldiers in the streets and around the presidential palace, the military’s top officer, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, did not even utter Mr. Morsi’s name as he announced that the president had been deposed and the Constitution suspended.

And suddenly, Mr. Morsi, like his immediate predecessor, Hosni Mubarak, discovered the enduring fact that the military looks out for itself above all else. It is not ideological, but is intensely politicized.

“Egypt’s military leaders are not ideologically committed to one thing or the other; they believe in their place in the political order,” said Steven A. Cook, a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. “They are willing to make a deal with virtually anyone, and this one didn’t work out, clearly.”

(More here.)