The illusion that Egypt’s military-backed interim government was willing and able to take the country to inclusive elections after last month’s anti-Islamist coup vanished amid the carnage on Cairo’s streets yesterday. With chaos spreading across the country, the military has declared a state of emergency. As the army tightens its grip and the death toll mounts, so too does the threat of civil war.
Violence was inevitable once armed security forces moved in on the Islamist protesters who have occupied public squares in Cairo to call for the release of former President Mohamed Morsi. No side is free of blame. Islamists have refused every offer of negotiation, demanding as a precondition the release and reinstatement of the deeply unpopular Mr Morsi. Worse, at the height of the violence, they called for more protesters to join the pitched battles instead of appealing for calm.
The military, which brought down a democratically elected government last month and now pulls the strings of a nominally civilian executive, has ignited Islamist fury further by trying to crush the Muslim Brotherhood. Hundreds of leaders have been rounded up and jailed, while Mr Morsi is being held on trumped-up charges. Until the resignation yesterday evening of Mohamed ElBaradei, secularists in the government have stood by as state forces were deployed against civilians in weeks of clashes that have left hundreds dead.