Egyptian President Modammed Morsi and his country stands on the brink of disaster as result of his own intransigence and refusal to accept political realities. For a man of his standing and assumed intelligence this is a situation he should never have got into.
He and his party won the June 2012 Election, beating his opponent, Ahmed Shafik, by 51.7% to 48.3%, a sliver of a victory. Most would understand that this gave him mandate to govern almost as a neutral, holding the balance between the two parties rather than to seek to dominate by visibly pushing the interests and policies of his own Islamic Brotherhood's interests over those of the opposition. Unfortunately he has chosen not to. He has thereby compromised Egypt's fragile nascent democracy and risked anything up to and including civil war amongst its citizens. The degree of intolerance he has thus demonstrated is breathtaking and may well lead to the death of many Egyptians.
What the army now does and how it does it will now be crucial, but Morsi will stand responsible for having brought on their intervention. One can only hope for a sudden change of direction away from obstinate confrontation to one of reconciliation. Doing an about turn at the last minute is better than never doing it at all,- but there is a risk that having brought things to this pass it may already be too late for Mr Morsi,- and Egypt. Particularly by moving away from Egypt' secular based and tolerant politics and promoting his more religion based constitutional reforms, Morsi has sharply polarised rather than united his country. The Middle East needs more healing, not less. Egypt needs stability both for its people and its economy of which international foreign currency bearing tourism is a vital part and employer.
Iran in particular will be looking to see what opportunities for misbehavior and mischief the Egyptian situation now presents. They are already busy in the destruction of Syria and have to be looking at opportunities to fan Turkey's moves away from Ataturk's outstandingly successful secularism. The last thing they need is encouragement to meddle in Egypt as well.
Go in peace.
