Dozens Die in New Egypt Violence

I don't trust official sources on this after my last round of reporting on the deaths in Egypt. Spend some time on Twitter and you'll see conflicting reports, with lots of on-the-ground witnesses saying Morsi supporters are murdering opponents. I'll check around later for more on that.

Meanwhile, at LAT, "Egyptian army clashes with Morsi supporters," and Foreign Policy, "Massacre in Cairo."

Muslim Brotherhood Thugs Throw Teenaged Morsi Supporters Off Rooftop, Killing One

At the Times of Israel, "‘Islamists throw youths off a roof in Egypt’.'

And at the Barracuda Brigade, "Rabid Animals ~ > Brotherhood & Al-Qaeda Toss Egyptians Off Roof Tops in Egypt ~ > Shocking and Graphic Video."

Mohamed ElBaradei Named Egyptian Prime Minister — UPDATED!

The Washington Post reports, "ElBaradei named Egyptian prime minister" (via Memeorandum).

UPDATE: Here's the headline now at the same WaPo piece, "ElBaradei’s appointment as Egyptian prime minister rolled back amid dispute."

He's not PM. That was soooo 3 hrs ago. RT ‏@Cirincione Appointment of @ElBaradei as interim PM is the best news out of Egypt in a long time.
— Nima Shirazi (@WideAsleepNima) July 6, 2013

The irony is that Egypt has just been named the world's Number 2 failed states basket case by none other than ElBaradei himself, at the new Foreign Policy, "'You Can't Eat Sharia'":

Two years after the revolution that toppled a dictator, Egypt is already a failed state. According to the Failed States Index, in the year before the uprising we ranked No. 45. After Hosni Mubarak fell, we worsened to 31st. I haven't checked recently -- I don't want to get more depressed. But the evidence is all around us.

Today you see an erosion of state authority in Egypt. The state is supposed to provide security and justice; that's the most basic form of statehood. But law and order is disintegrating. In 2012, murders were up 130 percent, robberies 350 percent, and kidnappings 145 percent, according to the Interior Ministry. You see people being lynched in public, while others take pictures of the scene. Mind you, this is the 21st century -- not the French Revolution!

The feeling right now is that there is no state authority to enforce law and order, and therefore everybody thinks that everything is permissible. And that, of course, creates a lot of fear and anxiety.

You can't expect Egypt to have a normal economic life under such circumstances. People are very worried. People who have money are not investing -- neither Egyptians nor foreigners. In a situation where law and order is spotty and you don't see institutions performing their duties, when you don't know what will happen tomorrow, obviously you hold back. As a result, Egypt's foreign reserves have been depleted, the budget deficit will be 12 percent this year, and the pound is being devalued. Roughly a quarter of our youth wake up in the morning and have no jobs to go to. In every area, the economic fundamentals are not there.

Egypt could risk a default on its foreign debt over the next few months, and the government is desperately trying to get a credit line from here and there -- but that's not how to get the economy back to work. You need foreign investment, you need sound economic policies, you need functioning institutions, and you need skilled labor.

So far, however, the Egyptian government has only offered a patchwork vision and ad hoc economic policies, with no steady hand at the helm of the state. The government adopted some austerity measures in December to satisfy certain IMF requirements, only to repeal them by morning. Meanwhile, prices are soaring and the situation is becoming untenable, particularly for the nearly half of Egyptians who live on less than $2 a day.

And the truth is, ElBaradei's no moderate. He's an anti-American U.N. bureaucrat shilling for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. See FrontPage Magazine, "The Muslim Brotherhood’s Mask: Mohammed El-Baradei."

Obama: Still Wrong on Egypt, and the World

From Walter Russell Mead, "Still Wrong About Egypt — and Wrong About the World."

Commenting on the president's anodyne and vapid statement on Egypt, Mead writes:

Concludes President Obama:

No transition to democracy comes without difficulty, but in the end it must stay true to the will of the people. An honest, capable and representative government is what ordinary Egyptians seek and what they deserve. The longstanding partnership between the United States and Egypt is based on shared interests and values, and we will continue to work with the Egyptian people to ensure that Egypt’s transition to democracy succeeds.

One hopes the President understands what drivel this is. It is not at all clear that Egypt is in the midst of a transition to democracy. It is in the midst of a crisis of authority and has been wallowing for some time in a damaging crisis of governance, but is Egypt really in a transition to democracy? And is democracy really what “ordinary” Egyptians want?

Right now one suspects that most Egyptians fear that the country could be in a transition to anarchy, and that what ordinary Egyptians (who are extremely poor by US standards and earn their bread by the sweat of their brow with very little cushion against illness or a bad day at the market) want most of all right now is security. They aren’t fretting so much about when they will have a government more like Norway’s as they are terrified that their country is sliding in the direction of Libya, Syria or Iraq.

As is often the case, Washington policymakers seem to be paying too much attention to the glibbest of political scientists and the vaporings of the Davoisie. Egypt has none of the signs that would lead historians to think democracy is just around the corner. Mubarak was not Franco, and Egypt is not Spain. What’s happening in Egypt isn’t the robust flowering of a civil society so dynamic and so democratic that it can no longer be held back by dictatorial power.

Virtually every policeman and government official in the country takes bribes. Most journalists have lied for pay or worked comfortably within the confines of a heavily censored press all their careers. The Interior Ministry has files, often stuffed with incriminating or humiliating information about most of the political class. The legal system bowed like a reed before the wind of the Mubarak government’s will, and nothing about the character of its members has changed. The business class serves the political powers; the Copts by and large will bow to the will of any authority willing to protect them.

And Americans should not deceive themselves. While some of Morsi’s failure was the result of overreaching and dumb choices on his part, he faced a capital strike and an intense campaign of passive resistance by a government and business establishment backed by an army in bed with both groups. Their strategy was to bring Morsi down by sabotaging the economy, frustrating his policies and isolating his appointees. Although Egypt’s liberals supported the effort out of fear of the Islamists, the strategy had nothing to do with a transition to democracy, and it worked.

This is not to say that Morsi or his movement had a viable alternative policy or governance model for Egypt. They didn’t. The Muslim Brotherhood had no clue how Egypt could be governed, and a combination of incompetence, corruption, factionalism and religious dogmatism began to wreck Morsi’s government from Day One.

If American policy toward Egypt is based on the assumption that Egypt is having a “messy transition” to democracy and that we must shepherd the poor dears to the broad sunny uplands, encouraging when they do well, chiding when they misstep, Washington will keep looking foolish and our influence will continue to fade. If that is the approach our foolishness compels us to take, look for more cases in which American good intentions just make us more hated—not because we are wicked, but because we are clueless.

Islamists Learn: Governing Is Hard

A good piece, at the New York Times, "For Islamists, Dire Lessons on Politics and Power":

CAIRO — Sheik Mohamed Abu Sidra had watched in exasperation for months as President Mohamed Morsi and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood bounced from one debilitating political battle to another.

“The Brotherhood went too fast, they tried to take too much,” Sheik Abu Sidra, an influential ultraconservative Islamist in Benghazi, Libya, said Thursday, a day after the Egyptian military deposed and detained Mr. Morsi and began arresting his Brotherhood allies.

But at the same time, Sheik Abu Sidra said, Mr. Morsi’s overthrow had made it far more difficult for him to persuade Benghazi’s Islamist militias to put down their weapons and trust in democracy.

“Do you think I can sell that to the people anymore?” he asked. “I have been saying all along, ‘If you want to build Shariah law, come to elections.’ Now they will just say, ‘Look at Egypt,’ and you don’t need to say anything else.”

From Benghazi to Abu Dhabi, Islamists are drawing lessons from Mr. Morsi’s ouster that could shape political Islam for a generation. For some, it demonstrated the futility of democracy in a world dominated by Western powers and their client states. But others, acknowledging that the takeover accompanied a broad popular backlash, also faulted the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood for reaching too fast for so many levers of power.

The Brotherhood’s fall is the greatest in an array of setbacks that have halted the once seemingly unstoppable march of political Islam. As they have moved from opposition to establishment, Islamist parties in Turkey, Tunisia and now Egypt have all been caught up in crises over the secular practicalities of governing like power sharing, urban planning, public security or even keeping the lights on.

Brotherhood leaders — the few who have not been arrested or dropped out of sight — have little doubt about the source of their problems. They say that the Egyptian security forces and bureaucracy conspired to sabotage their rule, and that the generals seized on the chance to topple the Morsi government under the cover of popular anger at the dysfunction of the state.

Their account strikes a chord with fellow Islamists around the region who are all too familiar with the historic turning points when, they say, military crackdowns stole their imminent democratic victories: Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954; Algeria in 1991; and the Palestinian territories in 2006.

“The message will resonate throughout the Muslim world loud and clear: democracy is not for Muslims,” Essam el-Haddad, Mr. Morsi’s foreign policy adviser, warned on his official Web site shortly before the military detained him and cut off all his communication. The overthrow of an elected Islamist government in Egypt, the symbolic heart of the Arab world, Mr. Haddad wrote, would fuel more violent terrorism than the Western wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And he took aim at Western critics of the Islamists. “The silence of all of those voices with an impending military coup is hypocritical,” Mr. Haddad wrote, “and that hypocrisy will not be lost on a large swath of Egyptians, Arabs and Muslims.”

Well, nobody's coming out roses so far. If folks aren't careful we'll be seeing Damascus on the Nile before too long.

See also, Ashraf Khalil, at Foreign Affairs, "The Irony of Tahrir Square."

Morsi's Ouster Fuels Debate About U.S. Middle East Policy

Actually, we've been having a debate on Middle East policy since this presidential amateur took office.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Morsi's ouster fuels debate on U.S. policy on the Mideast":

Egyptians smarter than Americans Re OBAMA pic.twitter.com/pqOIyjrxfQ

— LeahR (@LeahR77) July 2, 2013

WASHINGTON — The military overthrow of the democratically elected government in Egypt, for decades America's most important Arab ally, has rekindled a fierce debate about whether the Obama administration's Mideast policy has been too passive and ineffective.

President Obama declared that U.S. allegiance was to "democratic principles" after Egypt's military ousted President Mohamed Morsi on Wednesday, but critics charge that the White House made only halfhearted attempts to steer Morsi's increasingly authoritarian government toward democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights.

"They've been late, and slow, and not taken these problems seriously," Michele Dunne, a former State Department official and administration advisor on Egypt who now heads the nonpartisan Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, said Friday.

Obama repeatedly failed "to use leverage to ensure that Egyptian authorities adhere to democratic principles," the Project on Middle East Democracy, an advocacy group in Washington, said in a statement.

The critics, who include Democratic foreign policy stalwarts as well as Republicans, say the upheaval in Egypt, on top of the administration's inability to stem the civil war in Syria or persuade Iran to curb its nuclear program, adds a blot to Obama's foreign policy record.

They blame, in part, Obama's desire to reduce America's overseas commitments after a decade of war, along with his apparent effort to pull back from a leadership position in favor of a more supporting role in the Middle East.

Administration officials say in their defense that Washington has limited influence in Egypt's domestic affairs and that visible efforts to apply U.S. pressure can backfire. They say they have dealt with key political players but have often kept their diplomacy quiet to avoid inflaming Egypt's polarized political environment.

After President Hosni Mubarak was toppled in an "Arab Spring" uprising in February 2011, the White House tried to encourage a transition to democracy. In national elections in June 2012, Morsi won 52% of the presidential vote and his party — the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood — won 48% in parliamentary elections.

Morsi cooperated with Obama in working out a cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in November, and White House aides hoped for a relationship with Cairo that could be a model for other Islamist-dominated countries. The chief focus was security cooperation, including joint counter-terrorism operations and support for Egypt's peace treaty with Israel.

Critics now say the U.S. focus on security meant the White House was unwilling to push back when Egypt's military abused human rights, including ordering military trials for 10,000 civilians accused in connection with the 2011 protests, and when the Morsi government began trying to monopolize power.

More at the link.

Troops Open Fire on Morsi Supporters

At the Los Angeles Times, "Egypt unrest: Troops open fire on ex-President Morsi's supporters." And from the photo caption there, "The body of a supporter of ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi lies on the ground after he was shot dead during clashes in Cairo."

And at the New York Times, "Video Shows Shooting of Protester in Egypt."

Photo here.

That dude is f-ked up.

More, "Egypt Protests Turn Increasingly Violent."

Earlier, "Egypt Launches Post-Coup Crackdown."

Added: ColorMeRed on Twitter warns to be cautious about MSM accounts of the violence, and posts this video to show that Muslim Brotherhood cadres may be killing anti-Morsi protesters.

Also at Pat Dollard's, FWIW, "WATCH: Muslim Brotherhood Shoots at Civilians So Cops Will Be Blamed."

And see the Heritage Foundation, "Q&A on Egypt: James Carafano."

3:50pm PST: At London's Daily Mail, "Egypt in chaos: 10 dead as protesters marching on barracks where ousted president Morsi is held are met by tanks on 'Friday of rage'."

4:08pm PST: At the New York Times, "Social Media Updates on Clashes in Cairo."

And from revolutionary socialist Tarek Shalaby:

Chants for Sisi at Hilton Ramses hotel - the frontline of the clashes. This is a sorry sight. #Tahrir

— Tarek Shalaby (@tarekshalaby) July 5, 2013

Left #Tahrir. MB have substantial bird shots on them, but there are weapons on both sides and no presence of army or police to stop. #June30

— Tarek Shalaby (@tarekshalaby) July 5, 2013

And from CNN's Ben Wedeman:

Must watch Video: Morsi supporters threatening terrorism, Christians, Sisi, etc., etc., etc. http://t.co/20nco1GvM6 #Egypt #30June #June30

— benwedeman (@bencnn) July 5, 2013

Egypt Launches Post-Coup Crackdown

At WSJ, "Egypt Military Launches Crackdown: Army Reasserts Authority, Arresting Islamist Leaders and Installing New President":

CAIRO—Egypt's military reclaimed its role as the country's dominant political force as it installed a new president and pressed for the arrests of Islamist leaders it had forced from power, deepening international concern for the stability and democratic future of the largest country in the Arab world.

A day after the army seized on antigovernment protests to overthrow President Mohammed Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president, a dozen fighter jets buzzed downtown Cairo with trails of red, white and black smoke, the colors of the Egyptian flag.

As the military sounded a victorious chord, Mr. Morsi and some top Muslim Brotherhood allies were already in police custody and the Islamist organization was reviving its longtime role as an opposition force, organizing large-scale nationwide protests for Friday.

The military's sudden recalibration of political forces followed an outpouring of popular discontent with Mr. Morsi and the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party. An array of voices backed those protests, among them a contingent of re-emergent loyalists to Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted by a popular revolution—with military support—over two years ago.

Some of those former Mubarak loyalists have re-emerged to take new roles in the transition ahead, according to people close to discussions between the military and anti-Morsi activists.

That transition—and a new era of potential turmoil—kicked off on Thursday with the swearing-in of military-appointed president Adly Mansour, a judge who had been named head of the Supreme Constitutional Court on Monday. Mr. Mansour took two oaths on Thursday morning: The first made him chief justice and the second elevated him to the presidency. Mr. Mansour is to remain president until new elections are held, at an unspecified date, according to the military's transition plan. The military has also suspended Egypt's new constitution, which was drafted by the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Constituent Assembly and signed into law by Mr. Morsi in December, after a national referendum.

In a sign of this week's reversal of fortunes, Egypt's acting attorney general on Thursday issued arrest warrants for Muslim Brotherhood supreme leader Mohamed Badie and his deputy, Khairat al Shater, according to Mena, the state news agency. The two are wanted on charges of inciting the killing of eight protesters in front of the Brotherhood's headquarters in Cairo.

Continue reading.

And at LAT, "Egypt military cracks down on Muslim Brotherhood."

Our Government in Action: State Department Denies John Kerry Yachting During Egyptian Coup

Look, it's 4th of July. Why not just say Secretary Kerry is staying in contact with all the relevant personnel and be done with it? It's not like he's going fly to Cairo and calm the waters, or anything. But in line with this administration's MO, it's lying liars all the way.

At Twitchy, "Twitter user: ‘Kerry sailed right by me yesterday on the Nantucket sound’ [photo]; Update: Boston Herald confirms Kerry is on Nantucket."

Also, "Cavalcade of conflicting info: Where in the world was John Kerry as Egypt lurched into chaos?" And at the Blaze, "CBS PRODUCER REFUSES TO RETRACT JOHN KERRY YACHT STORY — AND THERE’S A VIDEO THAT COULD HELP HIS CASE."

UPDATE: The dude Sam Hodges pulled his tweet, most likely due to Democrat harassment on Twitter. But the Boston Herald has this, "Kerry vacationing on Nantucket amid Egypt turmoil."

Here's 'Proud Savage' Mona Eltahawy on Twitter Because — FREEDOM!

She was whining to a cab driver about how her huge --- huge! --- number of media appearances were wearing her down, at Twitchy, "Sacrificing for Egypt: Courageous Mona Eltahawy moans of her pundit plight in Egyptian coup."

But it wasn't a coup, it wasn't!

And don't tell poor Mona otherwise, or she'll f-bomb you a new one, "Mona Eltahawy unleashes F-bomb laced tirade on … fellow lefties?"

She's going after Max Blumenthal, the vile POS.

Leftists going off on leftists. That's one hella 4th of July treat, because — FREEDOM!

Added: At the Other McCain, "Well, @MonaEltahawy Is Indisputably Correct: Max Blumenthal Is a Douchebag."

Egypt's Second Revolution?

Look, Morsi sucks goats balls, but Egypt's in a dangerous place right now. We could see a lot of violence in the weeks and months ahead, especially if Muslim Brotherhood operatives resort to terrorism.

At the Guardian UK, "Mohamed Morsi ousted in Egypt's second revolution in two years."

Despite Claims, Obama Administration Has Done Little to Press Mohamed Morsi on Human Rights

From Eli Lake and Josh Rogan, at the Daily Beast, "Obama Offers a Revisionist History of His Administration’s Approach to Egypt" (via Israel Matzav and Memeorandum):

In nearly every confrontation with Congress since the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the White House has fought restrictions proposed by legislators on the nearly $1.6 billion in annual U.S. aid to Egypt. Twice in two years, the White House and the State Department fought hard against the very sorts of conditions for aid that Obama claimed credit for this week. When President Mohamed Morsi used the power of his presidency to target his political opponents, senior administration officials declined to criticize him in public. Many close Egypt observers argue that the Obama administration’s treatment of Morsi has been in line with the longstanding U.S. policy of turning a blind eye to the human-rights abuses of his predecessor, Hosni Mubarak.

But don’t tell that to Obama. On Monday he said, “The way we make decisions about assistance to Egypt is based on are they in fact following rule of law and democratic procedures.” The president made these remarks in Tanzania, as millions of Egyptian street protesters demanded Morsi’s ouster.

Hillary Clinton, the secretary of State in his first term, described the Egypt aid process during a September 2011 visit to Cairo that took place after Mubarak’s resignation, but before the powerful Egyptian military acceded to the drafting of a new constitution and the free elections held in June 2012, when Morsi won office.

"We believe in aid to your military without any conditions, no conditionality,” Clinton said. "I’ve made that very clear. I was with the foreign minister, Mr. Amr, yesterday, and was very clear in saying that the Obama administration, and I personally am against that. I think it’s not appropriate."

(Secretary of State John Kerry spoke with Mohamed Kamel Amr on Tuesday, a day after the foreign minister announced his own resignation in response to the massive street protests and the military announcing a 48-hour ultimatum for the president to respond to those protests.)

In March 2012, Clinton waived restrictions passed by Congress on aid to Egypt “on the basis of America’s national-security interests.” That decision came in the midst of the Egyptian government’s crackdown on foreign NGOs, which included the raiding of the offices of several American organizations, including the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute, and Freedom House....

Michele Dunne, the executive director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, says that since 2011, U.S. policy has reverted to a traditional pattern of cooperation with the host government, and now the administration is embarrassed and is trying to pretend it used its influence to pressure Morsi.

“Obama’s statement constitutes a revisionist history of what they have been doing over the past two years,” she says. “We have not exercised the kind of support for democratic progress that we should have. That’s why people still think to this day that the Obama administration is just fully in support of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Of course, we're long past the point of embracing radical Islamists in American politics, we now literally have top level Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in the Obama White House.

And Obama's proven himself a liar over and over again, so none of this is a surprise. These people are treasonous bitches. People need to wake up to these mf traitors.

More at Memeorandum.

Obama's Statement on Egypt

At the Washington Wire:

President Barack Obama’s statement on Wednesday’s events in Egypt:

As I have said since the Egyptian Revolution, the United States supports a set of core principles, including opposition to violence, protection of universal human rights, and reform that meets the legitimate aspirations of the people. The United States does not support particular individuals or political parties, but we are committed to the democratic process and respect for the rule of law. Since the current unrest in Egypt began, we have called on all parties to work together to address the legitimate grievances of the Egyptian people, in accordance with the democratic process, and without recourse to violence or the use of force.

The United States is monitoring the very fluid situation in Egypt, and we believe that ultimately the future of Egypt can only be determined by the Egyptian people. Nevertheless, we are deeply concerned by the decision of the Egyptian Armed Forces to remove President Morsy and suspend the Egyptian constitution. I now call on the Egyptian military to move quickly and responsibly to return full authority back to a democratically elected civilian government as soon as possible through an inclusive and transparent process, and to avoid any arbitrary arrests of President Morsy and his supporters. Given today’s developments, I have also directed the relevant departments and agencies to review the implications under U.S. law for our assistance to the Government of Egypt.

Continue reading.

And at Twitchy, "Always evolving: White House releases this week’s position on who should control Egypt’s destiny":

Obama on the wrong side of history twice in Egypt. Calls for Mubarak to step down but not Morsi. Nice work.

— Kirsten Powers (@kirstenpowers10) July 3, 2013

Yeah, well. As I tweeted earlier:

He's got no clue, really. RT @emilydparker "Obama orders US to review aid to Egypt" http://t.co/eoKetOf9NF …

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) July 3, 2013

Military Ousts Mohamed Morsi in Egypt

Al Jazeera's live feed is here.

And at the Lede blog, "The Lede: Latest Updates on Egypt’s Political Crisis."

Also at Legal Insurrection, "Morsi removed from power by military in Egypt."

And at the Wall Street Journal, "Egyptian Military Removes President: Morsi Rejects Move; Court Official Installed as Constitution Is Suspended":

CAIRO—The leader of Egypt's military ousted President Mohammed Morsi from office and replaced him with the head of the country's constitutional court—a move the presidential palace quickly branded a "complete military coup."

The announcements capped days of political crisis that brought millions of Egyptians out to the country's streets, spurring bellicose rhetoric from Mr. Morsi's backers and Egypt's military, and sparking deadly violence. Egyptians remained on the squares on Wednesday evening, the stark divides between their celebration and anger suggesting a new period of political uncertainty ahead.

In a terse televised statement Wednesday evening, Defense Secretary Gen. Abdel Fattah Al Sisi—joined by important Muslim, Coptic and oppositionchiefs—announced Mr. Morsi's ouster. The head of Egypt's highest court—Adly Mansour, a judge who was named to the position only two days earlier—would take over from Mr. Morsi effective immediately, he said.

Mr. Mansour is tasked with leading a technocratic government that will be "inclusive of all political factions" including youth, who Gen. Sisi said would be "empowered" under the terms of the new government.

Gen. Sisi also suspended the constitution that Mr. Morsi and his Islamist allies pushed through late last year in a controversial referendum, and charged the Supreme Constitutional Court with addressing the draft law for parliamentary elections.

The military leader—until recently a close ally of Mr. Morsi—said that a committee would be formed to amend the constitution.

Mr. Morsi's office rejected the move, but called on Egyptians to peacefully resist what it called a military coup. Mr. Morsi's statement came hours after he mounted what appeared to be a last-ditch effort to remain in power—offering a plan to form a coalition government to run parliamentary elections, and forming an independent committee to address constitutional amendments and present them to the coming parliament.

Continue reading.

Also at Foreign Affairs, "Foreign Affairs Report: A Year of Morsi."

Foreign Policy has a lot of excellent coverage, for example, "Celebrating a Disaster in Egypt," and "Can a Coup Ever Be Democratic?"

Still more at Memeorandum.

Expect updates ...

Defiant Morsi Rejects Calls to Step Down

At the Wall Street Journal, "Egypt's Leader Vows to Stay: Defiant Morsi Rejects Military Pressure, Calls to Step Down; 'I Have No Choice'":

CAIRO—Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi rejected protesters' calls for him to step down, telling Egyptians in a late-night address that he is willing to give his life "to protect the legitimacy" of the country's ballot box and Islamist-drafted constitution.

Without elaborating, he mentioned the possibility of parliamentary elections in six months, part of a list of proposals he said he would consider during talks with the opposition.

Moments later, antigovernment protesters in four provinces across Egypt chanted against the president, calling for him and his Muslim Brotherhood-backed party to leave, according to live footage. Antigovernment protests again swelled on Egypt's streets, reaching millions, according to local media estimates, just hours ahead of the military's Wednesday deadline for Mr. Morsi to patch relations with the country's opposition.

Morsi supporters and antigovernment protesters clashed near Cairo University in the suburb of Giza late Tuesday, leaving at least four people dead, according to the Ministry of Health. The groups traded fire of rubber bullets and pellets in Cairo's Kit Kat district, according to residents and local media.

The Obama administration has used U.S. diplomatic and military channels to deliver quiet messages and warnings to Mr. Morsi and Egyptian commanders to try to head off the crisis and avert any military coup, according to current and former officials.

Continue reading.

And from Mandy Nagy, at Legal Insurrection, "Morsi rejects military ultimatum (Update: “I am prepared to sacrifice my blood”)(Update No. 2: Egypt army says ready to die in “final hours”)."

Pamela Geller Smacks Down Michael Ghouse on Hannity's

At Atlas Shrugs, "HANNITY VIDEO: PAMELA GELLER V. MICHAEL GHOUSE SMACK DOWN DEBATE ON EGYPT / MORSI SITUATION."

Obama Urges Morsi to Be 'Responsive' to Protesters

At Fox News:

President Obama has urged Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi to respond to issues raised by hundreds of thousands of protesters who have called for the Islamist leader to be removed from office.

The White House released a statement Tuesday saying that Obama told Morsi in a telephone conversation Monday that "the United States is committed to the democratic process in Egypt and does not support any single party or group." The statement went on to say that Obama "encouraged [Morsi] to take steps to show that he is responsive to [protesters'] concerns, and underscored that the current crisis can only be resolved through a political process."

The call from Obama came on the same day that Egypt's powerful military warned it will intervene if Morsi doesn't "meet the people's demands," giving him and his opponents two days to reach an agreement in what it called a last chance. Hundreds of thousands of protesters massed for a second consecutive day Monday calling on Morsi to step down.

Continue reading.

Walid Phares: 'We Are Watching the Real Arab Spring...'

Via Jawa Report:

Egyptians React to Army's Ultimatum — the Brotherhood is Finished!

At the New York Times:

As our colleagues David Kirkpatrick, Kareem Fahim and Ben Hubbard report, the head of the Egyptian military, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, gave President Mohamed Morsi 48 hours “to respond to the people’s demands” or the armed forces would move to impose its “own road map for the future.”

Reaction to the general’s warning, in a statement read aloud on state television, was swift, both online and on the streets of the capital, Cairo, where supporters and opponents of the president were still massed, one day after huge protests.

Egypt's Army Issues Ultimatum to Morsi

At the New York Times, "Leader Given 2 Days to Satisfy Protesters or Face Takeover."

And see Mandy Nagy, at Legal Insurrection, "BREAKING: Egyptian Military Gives Morsi 48-Hour Ultimatum."