Egyptian Revolution Derailed, Contained

A fourth wave of the Egyptian revolution seems inevitable, until the revolution changes the regime or the regime emerges victorious, pending another revolution.

The January 25 revolution in Egypt, which removed the former president Hosni Mubarak from power in 2011 and, in its second wave, overwhelmed the first anniversary of his elected successor Mohammad Morsi on June 30, 2013 with millions over millions of anti - Muslim Brotherhood protesters until the military intervened to remove him in turn three days later, is now entering its third stage without yet being completed, fulfilled or finished.

In a statement issued on July 27, 2013, US Secretary of State John Kerry grasped the fact that the Egyptian revolution has not yet run its course; "Its final verdict is not yet decided," he said, "but it will be forever impacted by what happens right now." He described the situation prevailing "now" as a "pivotal moment for Egypt."

Years ago, John C. Campbel, in "Foreign Policy," had described the Middle East as "a house of containment built on shifting sands," from the perspective of the United States, and his description still applies today, no better than to the current state of affairs in Egypt, where the state has become more like a house of cards.

So far, Egypt's revolution was more a "regime exchange" than a "regime change." The old pro -- U.S. market economy centers of power had merely rotated power among the liberal "remnants" of the Mubarak regime and the conservatives of his opposition led by the Muslim Brotherhood, with the military playing the role of the arbiter. For example, the Sawiris family billionaires who were milking them are coming back now after they were replaced by the billionaire and MB leader Khairat al-Shater and his ilks during the Morsi era. They were thus far successful in derailing and containing the revolution, which has changed nothing of the old regime, neither internally nor externally.

This rotation of power has so far proved an effective mechanism in containing the revolution and derailing it away from evolving into a new order. The political polarization along these lines is another mechanism; Mazda Majidi on July 20 wrote on the Web site of the U.S. Party of Socialism and Liberation: "A long confrontation with the military on one side and Brotherhood supporters on the other could yield a situation where the people in the streets right now will be sidelined, " and consequently their revolution aborted.

Washington D.C. is adapting to this "regime exchange" in order to prevent a "change in the regime," which the successive US administrations have nurtured as a strategic asset to both the United States and its Israeli regional ally since the Camp David accords of 1979.

Answering his question whether the removal of Morsi was a U.S.-engineered coup, Majidi wrote that "Washington would have had no incentive to orchestrate a military coup to overthrow the Muslim Brotherhood (MB);" Morsi "worked well with the U.S.," "played a key role" in brokering a truce between Israel and Hamas in late 2012," and in the conflict in Syria, he and the MB "were solidly behind the U.S. effort to overthrow the Syrian state;" accordingly, "Washington could live with Morsi, but it obviously has no problems with Egypt's military," who are the most committed to the strategic ties with the U.S. and the best guardians of the peace treaty with Israel.

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