For months now, the transitional government in Egypt has served as a punching bag for the frustrations of the Egyptian street. It has also been the front line of defense for the Egyptian army, under the leadership of Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi. The masses have grown accustomed to unleashing the rage and frustration that has built up over time on the government. The Egyptian transitional government on Monday decided that it had had enough, and tendered its resignation thereby removing the comfortable shelter the Egyptian army had used to shield itself from the public wrath. But the government's resignation is neither here not there, because it was never the main problem. From the outset, its role in the Egyptian establishment was limited and minimal. Demonstrators did indeed express condemnations against the government, but their invective was aimed at someone else: Tantawi, head of the ruling Supreme Military Council. Tantawi recently decided to throw down the gauntlet, resulting in dozens killed and hundreds wounded. Eleven months after Mubarak's ouster from power, there is a sense in Egypt that while the former president is in prison, his spirit still hovers in the conference rooms of Cairo's decision-makers. However, the military council does not bear responsibility for the descent into violence. This deterioration reflects, first and foremost, the suspicion on the Egyptians' part toward the army and its commanders and their doubts about whether there will ever be civilian rule. Moreover, these demonstrations are an expression of the frustration felt on the Egyptian street that not much has changed almost a year after the revolution. The demonstrations in Cairo should be seen as the final note in the seemingly never-ending Egyptian revolution and the beginning of the struggle over the Egyptian state a struggle between the Muslim Brotherhood and the army. The Muslim Brotherhood, which has been encouraged by the electoral victory of its brothers in Tunisia, is turning out to be the most organized and significant force on the Egyptian street. The army stands opposite them, seeking to preserve Egypt's image as a country that is free from the shackles of religion, yet also to preserve its own status in the future Egypt. Indeed, the immediate cause of the riots was the military's attempt to establish a national security council as the country's supreme authority, whose power would supersede that of the parliament and the president, both of which are to be elected in the coming weeks. A council of this sort existed in Turkey for years to ensure the country's military rule, until the arrival of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2003. The Muslim Brotherhood opposes such a council, which is why it urged its supporters to flex their muscles in the first demonstration of its kind in the streets of Cairo.
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No one wants to see Egypt sink into chaos and anarchy right now: Not the army, which wants to end the guardianship it has been entrusted with since the fall of Mubarak; nor the Muslim Brotherhood, which is convinced that it will win big in the election. However, the riots and the crowds have their own dynamic. In any case, even if the demonstrations are suppressed, the struggle for Egypt's future for control over it and its national image has just begun. It seems that both the Muslim Brotherhood and the army are determined to fight to the bitter end.
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