Egypt: Morsi’s Stubbornness and the Role of the US in the Coup d'Etat

Barely a week after the military coup that removed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi from power, we know a little more about the chain of events that led the army to take action Wednesday evening in Cairo. According to The New York Times, two key elements brought about the events: Mohamed Morsi’s incredible stubbornness and the critical background role played by the U.S. in the days leading up to the overthrow of the Egyptian president.

A few hours before his arrest at dawn on Thursday, July 4, the Islamist president received one final phone call from an Arab foreign affairs minister on behalf of the United States, according to a well-researched New York Times article. The article did not specify which country the call came from. It may have been Qatar, the emirate that in recent years has played the role of intermediary between the Muslim Brotherhood and Washington.

The U.S. urged Morsi to accept a prime minister to head a new government that would have the power to appoint provincial governors. Morsi refused, telling the Arab dignitary that he would rather die than accept the changes.

A little later, his foreign affairs advisor, Essam el-Haddad, called the U.S. ambassador in Cairo, Anne W. Patterson, to convey Morsi’s denial of the American proposal. In Washington, Susan Rice, head of the National Security Council, had participated in the earlier phone call with Morsi.

“Mother [America] just told us that we will stop playing in one hour,” one of Morsi’s aides told him. This was recognition that the U.S. would no longer oppose the actions of the Egyptian army, which arrested Morsi, the first democratically elected leader in Egypt, a few hours later.

According to The New York Times, “Morsi never believed the generals would turn on him as long as he respected their autonomy and privileges.” Yet, in believing this he was profoundly misguided.

For months, the president alone cultivated a relationship with the army, without the involvement of other Islamist leaders. He believed his good relationship with the conservative General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who he named to the position in the summer of 2012, would protect him. He had convinced himself that General Sisi took no interest in politics. But last fall, when the public’s disenchantment with Morsi began to manifest, General Sisi signaled that he would not necessarily steer clear of politics.

And one of the earliest conflicts erupted when the Islamist president opposed General Sisi’s initiative to convene — without consulting Morsi — all of the political factions in the country with the goal of including their voices in the government. “Mr. Morsi … often pressed the general to stop unnamed military officials from making threatening or disparaging statements toward the president in the news media,” stated New York Times journalists who relied on statements of those within the Islamist movement.

Until the very end, the head of state remained convinced that the army would not act. In fact, he was the only one in the Islamist hierarchy to believe that.

Yet, for more than six months, the United States had begged him to compromise with the opposition. That was the message President Barack Obama conveyed to Essam el-Haddad in December 2012 in the Oval Office. At the same time, the U.S. offered to act as an intermediary between Morsi and the opposition leaders, such as Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Amr Moussa, the former head of the Arab League. Once again, Mohamed Morsi conclusively dismissed the offer.

What is curious about Times’ story of the events of the last 10 days is that Morsi’s entourage seems to have been more aware of the gravity of the situation than Morsi himself, who seems locked in his ivory tower and convinced — wrongly, it turns out — that the Americans would not let him fall.

Even after the June 21 warning, where General Sisi asked the head of state to listen to the people’s demands, Morsi did not believe for an instant that a coup d’etat was imminent. And when the army’s strong man called on him again on Saturday, June 29, on the eve of the first demonstrations, to plead with him to accept concessions — notably, a new government — he refused anew, arguing that he should first discuss with the Muslim Brotherhood leadership.

According to The New York Times, Morsi’s team underestimated the number of protesters who took to the streets on Sunday, June 30, convinced that the pro-Morsi demonstrators outnumbered their opponents. They were wrong about the strength of the forces that were in the street on Sunday, and the strength of the forces that were mobilizing throughout Egypt.

But the next day, when General Sisi gave Morsi a 48-hour ultimatum, his team began to change their minds, realizing that a coup d’etat was indeed underway.

On Monday, July 1, Morsi’s ambassadors had several meetings with the U.S. ambassador in Cairo and her advisors, along with telephone conversations with Susan Rice in Washington. Each time, the same message was conveyed: If you let Morsi fall, it would be “a long term disaster” for Egypt and the Arab people would “lose faith in democracy.”

At 2:00pm on Tuesday, when Morsi’s advisors met with General Sisi, they finally handed over an agreement with concessions. But at 6:00pm, by the time the head of the army returned to his office, the opposition had already invaded the streets of Cairo. The president and his team did not know that at the same time, General Sisi had negotiated a roadmap with Baradei, and the youth and religious dignitaries were at a breaking point. And when Morsi reacted to this news on the evening of Tuesday, July 2 by giving a vehement speech where he called his opponents “traitors,” his fate was already sealed. General Sisi considered this intervention by the Islamist president to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. The next day, the order was given to arrest him. With U.S. support, the Egyptian military moved in, having been disappointed that the other Washington ally in Cairo, Mohamed Morsi, remained unreceptive to any proposal.