Egypt’s defense minister issued Muslim Brotherhood Mohammed Morsi a 48-hour ultimatum on Monday to reach an agreement with the opposition or face a military solution to the violence gripping the country. The ultimatum followed a dictate by the opponents that if Morsi does not quit within 24 hours, they will lead the second rebellion in the country in less than three years.
Defense Minister General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said the security of the country is being threatened following the death toll of at least 16 and the firebomb attacks on the headquarters of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo.
The Brotherhood guards fired at attackers, and at least five people were killed.
Al-Sisi insisted he was not planning another military regime, but he did into detail what he meant by a “roadmap” if Morsi and the opposition cannot reach an agreement, which deems to be highly doubtful.
The anti-government protests that reached a peak on Sunday and Monday are the largest since those that deposed Hosni Mubarak for power and ushered in elections that catapulted the radical Islamic Muslim Brotherhood into power.
Morsi promptly tried to usurp powers that quickly turned his administration into a clone of the Mubarak regime, denying freedom and promoting corruption.
The economy has collapsed and the government is nearly bankrupt, providing all of the fuel for another rebellion. The lack of a single leader to attract the support of Egyptians is an indication that the people prefer anarchy, making it ripe for the military to take over as it did in the interim period between Mubarak’s ouster and Morsi’s election.
Morsi told the London Guardian that if he were to bow to opposition demands and quit, protesters would be back in the street within a “week or a month.”
Given the gang rapes of foreign journalists that accompanied the protests against Mubarak and that occurred again this week in the growing rebellion against Morsi, and given the breakdown of law and order and the Muslim war against the Christian Coptic sect, ultimatums and anarchy are the rule of the day in Egypt.
