Reuters: Muslim Brotherhood "steeling itself for a fight" if the army makes a move against Morsi; Update: Morsi asks military to withdraw ultimatum

According to Fox News, that move will indeed come tomorrow:

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Or will it?

A … joint statement? That sounds like they’ve worked something out, presumably involving new elections. Whatever Morsi’s planning to say must involve major concessions because, based on what the media’s been reporting all day long, the military’s not playing around here.

The Brotherhood isn’t playing around either. The one constant in Egypt stories today besides the army nearing zero hour in ousting Morsi is the rank and file of the MB vowing that they won’t go quietly. From the AP piece linked above:

The president’s Islamist backers have stepped up warnings that it will take bloodshed to dislodge him, saying they would rather die fighting a military takeover than accept Morsi’s ouster just a year after the country’s first free election.

“Seeking martyrdom to prevent the ongoing coup is what we can offer as a sign of gratitude to previous martyrs who died in the revolution,” Brotherhood stalwart Mohammed el-Beltagi wrote Tuesday in his official Facebook page.

It’s easy to draw the conclusion from the size of the mammoth anti-Morsi protests in Cairo that the people are entirely against him. Not true. The Islamists waited decades to take power in Egypt. They’re not ready to hand it back after two years:

It is here that about 100,000 Morsi supporters have gathered in recent days, a reminder that however many millions have called for his downfall since Sunday he retains a significant core support.

“I’m here to defend my vote and to defend a revolution I was part of,” says Shaima Abdel-Hamid, a teacher at the rally. “We chose a president and now they want to get rid of him when he’s dealing with 30 years of corruption. And they want to get rid of him after only a year.”

For many their backing of Morsi goes beyond support for his democratic legitimacy. The battle for Morsi is also a battle for the concept of political Islam, or the idea that the state should be run according to Islamist principles.

“Myself, I hate Morsi,” says Badr Badradin, an advertising agent who feels Morsi hasn’t done enough to promote Islamist rule. “But it’s not just about Morsi. It’s about the future of political Islam. He just happens to be its face right now.” Outside the mosque this week Islamists have often pointedly chanted: “Seculars will not rule Egypt again.”

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A Brotherhood spokesman called the military’s threats a “coup” in the making and warned this morning that “We are shifting our tactics. We have had a scenario for this for some time. If military moves on the ground we have a plan for that.” Open question: If street battles erupt, which side do the Salafists fight on? They’re rivals with the Brotherhood for Islamist support among Egyptian voters, but if Morsi and the MB end up getting crushed, that’s probably the end of significant Islamist influence in the Egyptian government for awhile. The Salafists may have no choice but to take his side.

Here’s your thread for following developments; I’ll update as soon as Morsi issues his statement. While we wait, watch Reuters correspondent Eric Trager on the ground in Cairo confirming that the MB is indeed “steeling itself for a fight,” replete with its own militias. Oh well: At least this civil war won’t be sectarian.

Update: Jeffrey Goldberg wonders how it came to be that the United States is being placed in an awkward position by Egyptians revolting against an Islamist regime:

[U.S. ambassador Anne] Patterson’s critics aren’t upset that she talks to the government. They’re upset by what she says when she does talk. She has issued only the mildest condemnations of Mursi’s various attempts to seize absolute power, and she has been criticized for talking to opposition forces only intermittently. She clearly underestimated the size and ferocity of the anti-Mursi forces, and said in her speech that she was “deeply skeptical” that the protests would achieve their goal. I’m sure, though, that the sight of hundreds of thousands of Egyptians in the streets of Cairo condemning the president has educated her on the potency of the opposition.

The crisis of the past few days, which may end in a military coup (which would then start the next crisis), might have been avoided had the Obama administration used its leverage — the $1.5 billion in aid the U.S. is giving Egypt this year, for starters — to force Mursi to include the opposition in his government from the outset. It didn’t. And the Egyptian masses noticed.

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The White House decided that it had to make amends for decades of U.S. support for an autocrat by blindly supporting the Arab Spring’s first democratically elected president, even as he turned into an autocrat too. Brilliant. I wonder if the reason Morsi’s issuing a statement “coordinated” with the military is because the White House has vetoed any coup attempt. That would be a bizarre case of doubling down on protecting Morsi, but don’t put it past O.

Update: Turns out, apparently, that that forthcoming Morsi statement that’s being “coordinated” with the military isn’t being coordinated after all.

And so now here we are:

Is Morsi in so much trouble now that he can’t get airtime on state TV?

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