The Obama administration on Tuesday sharply stepped up its criticism of Egypt's ruling council for its role in a wave of violence that has left at least 29 dead in the last four days, and demanded that military leaders hand over power to civilians as promised before July. The standoff since Saturday has become Egypt's most sustained challenge to nine months of military rule and has plunged the country into crisis. While the United States was slow to back the protesters who ended Hosni Mubarak's three-decade authoritarian rule, it is now scrambling to leverage what little influence it still has to ensure the Egyptian military sticks to its election timeline and adopts a softer approach to the civil unrest. That's because the U.S. still sees the council of generals under Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi as the best hope to shepherd Egypt's difficult transition to democracy. The ideal transition would start with free and fair parliamentary elections next week and end with a civilian president taking the reins by the end of June, as Tantawi promised Tuesday. But much of that vision depends on civil order being re-established. Get the Israel Hayom newsletter sent to your mailbox! "The violence needs to stop," White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters aboard Air Force One. "The Egyptians need to be able to decide their future and decide it in a peaceful manner." State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland on Monday called the deaths "deplorable," but refused to directly criticize Egyptian authorities. She spoke Tuesday in far sharper terms. "We condemn the excessive force used by the police," Nuland said Tuesday. "We strongly urge the Egyptian government to exercise maximum restraint, to discipline its forces and to protect the universal rights of all Egyptians to peacefully express themselves." Meanwhile, the spokeswoman for the American University in Cairo says three students arrested during protests in the city have been questioned by a prosecutor. Morgan Roth says the three were supposed to be questioned Tuesday under the observation of university and U.S. Embassy representatives. She thought that was cancelled but later found out they had been questioned with an embassy official present. The students have been held in Cairo since their arrest Monday night. An Egyptian official has said the students were arrested on the roof of a university building where they were throwing firebombs at security forces fighting with protesters near Tahrir Square. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because there was no authorization to speak to the media. Protests were raging in Cairo and elsewhere for the fifth consecutive day on Wednesday. Egypt's military ruler has promised to speed up a presidential election to the first half of 2012 and said the armed forces were prepared to hold a referendum on immediately shifting power to civilians concessions swiftly rejected by tens of thousands of protesters in Tahrir Square, who chanted, "Leave! Leave!" The latest standoff plunged the country deeper into crisis less than a week before parliamentary elections, the first since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak. In a televised address to the nation on Tuesday, Tantawi rejected all criticism of the military's handling of the transitional period and sought to cast himself and the generals on the military council he heads as the nation's foremost patriots. Significantly, he made no mention of the throngs of protesters gathered in Tahrir Square to demand that he step down immediately in favor of an interim civilian council. "Our demands are clear," said Khaled El-Sayed, a protester from the Youth Revolution Coalition and a candidate in the Nov. 28 parliamentary election. "We want the military council to step down and hand over authority to a national salvation government with full authority." The military previously floated the end of next year or early 2013 as the likely dates for the presidential election, which is widely being seen as the last stop in the process of transferring power. But Tantawi did not mention a specific date for the vote or when the military would return to its barracks. Furthermore, his offer for the military to step down immediately if the people so wished in a referendum was vague at best, but it also mirrored the generals' aversion to the youth groups that engineered the 18-day uprising that ousted Mubarak and which are again behind the massive, anti-military protest in Tahrir Square. His referendum proposal suggests that Tantawi has no faith that the crowds in the streets of Cairo and other cities represent of the nation's will. The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's strongest and best organized group, is not taking part in the ongoing protests in a move that is widely interpreted to be a reflection of its desire not to do anything that could derail a parliamentary election it is sure to dominate. The Brotherhood and the military have long been suspected of having a secret rapport although both sides vehemently deny it. If a referendum is held, the Brotherhood has the resources to influence the balloting by its ability to mobilize supporters and, for the right price, portray a vote favorable to the military as the duty of Muslims. Belal Fadl, a prominent columnist who has grown increasingly critical of the military after initially supporting it, said the solution for Egypt is to hold a presidential election immediately. "The referendum proposed by the field marshal would have worked if there was no revolution, and no hundreds of thousands in the streets, and tens of dead and thousands of wounded. Fear God for the sake of Egypt," he wrote on his Twitter account. "I had hoped Tantawi's speech would be reconciliatory and consensual. But he chose a defiant speech." Tantawi's address also bore a striking resemblance to Mubarak's televised speeches during the uprising, when the ousted leader made one concession after another only to be rejected by protesters as too little, too late. Mubarak said he made many sacrifices for Egypt, that he never cherished power and that he was hurt by the criticism from demonstrators. On Tuesday, Tantawi rejected what he called attempts to taint the reputation of the armed forces. "We have no aspiration to rule. ... The armed forces reject totally these attempts that target the military," a grim-looking Tantawi said. The former defense minister under Mubarak said the criticism of the military council was meant to weaken the armed forces and "bring down the Egyptian state." "The armed forces, represented by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, has no desire to rule and puts the country's interests above all," he said. "It is ready to hand over responsibility immediately and return to its original duty of defending the country if the people want that, and through a public referendum if it is necessary." Repeating a charge often made by fellow generals on the military council, Tantawi accused "forces working in the dark" of inciting sedition and driving a wedge between the people and the armed forces. As with Mubarak, Tantawi's words fell on deaf ears in Tahrir Square. "We are getting deja vu of Mubarak. It was a terrible speech and it means nothing. We aren't leaving until the military council steps down," said protester Nevine Abu Gheit, 29. Referring to Tantawi, the crowd chanted: "We are not leaving. He leaves."
