[On Sunday,
Mr. Morsi forcibly retired the country’s defense minister, Field
Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, and the army chief of staff, Sami Hafez Enan.
The heads of the air force, navy and air defense were also forced into
retirement. Since the purge, Egyptians have desperately sought clues about
whether the shake-up would begin a new period of conflict between the military
and Mr. Morsi, a former leader in the Muslim Brotherhood.]
By Kareem Fahim And Mayy El Sheikh
In an interview, one ranking officer said the military had
grown increasingly demoralized because of meager salaries, cronyism, shoddy
equipment, a lack of promotion opportunities and growing confusion over the
role of its leaders.
Those complaints crystallized last week after gunmen killed
16 soldiers in the northern Sinai
Peninsula , causing embarrassment
throughout the ranks. “The military didn’t change,” said the officer, a unit
commander who was not authorized to speak to reporters and requested anonymity.
“Give me equipment to work. You can’t give me ruined cars, a hundred soldiers
and ask me to secure 30 square kilometers in the desert.”
The changing of the guard left an uncertain landscape. The
balance of power has apparently shifted to Mr. Morsi, with the powerful Supreme
Council of the Armed Forces, which had been running the country since the
revolution last year, unsettled but still firmly in place. On Monday, a day
after the generals’ ouster, there were no signs that the military was
mobilizing in protest.
That led many analysts to suspect that the president had
reached an accommodation with a new generation of military leaders who were
seeking to restore the armed forces’ credibility, enhance their own positions,
and preserve the military’s privileged and protected place in society.
On Sunday, Mr. Morsi forcibly retired the country’s defense minister, Field
Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, and the army chief of staff, Sami Hafez Enan.
The heads of the air force, navy and air defense were also forced into
retirement. Since the purge, Egyptians have desperately sought clues about
whether the shake-up would begin a new period of conflict between the military
and Mr. Morsi, a former leader in the Muslim Brotherhood.
“Changing those leaders was smart for Morsi,” the officer
said. “He waited for the right timing, when the country had already taken steps
along the right path.”
Whether or not Mr. Morsi struck a bargain with the younger
officers, he might have enhanced his credibility with political forces outside
the Brotherhood who had clamored for an end to military rule. At the same time,
he could gain a degree of loyalty from a cast of officers who owe their new
prominence to him.
Since the uprising, the military’s status has been the
subject of a tug of war between the Brotherhood, which is the country’s most powerful
political party, and the armed forces, represented by Field Marshal Tantawi and
the military council.
That struggle grew more confrontational as the Brotherhood
and Mr. Morsi closed in on the presidency before the elections this spring,
devolving into a fight over political authority that threatened to further
polarize an already divided nation.
Emad Shahin, a political science professor at the American
University Cairo , said: “The negotiation process over the last year and a
half was not working. It’s not producing results.” He said the younger
generation of military leaders, recognizing that fact, might have welcomed the
change in leadership.
They included Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, whom Mr. Morsi
named as Field Marshal Tantawi’s replacement. “I see tons of reasons why Sisi
should cooperate,” Mr. Shahin said, including a need to rehabilitate the
military’s image. “If I were in Sisi’s shoes, I would say, ‘Maybe if we remove
these stubborn generals, something will happen.’ ”
The killings of the soldiers provided another reason for
the young officers to act. “This is definitely a failure of the military
institution to uphold its responsibility,” Mr. Shahin said.
The opaque nature of Egypt ’s military made it hard to determine precisely what sort
of debates had taken place. Some said it was possible that a faction within the
supreme council, including General Sisi, was willing to settle for far less
than the broad powers that Field Marshal Tantawi and his allies had sought for
themselves.
“I think there is a minimum for the military
establishment,” said Omar Ashour, a professor at England ’s University of Exeter Cairo . “They want a veto in sensitive foreign policy issues,
including on Israel and Iran — any policy that can implicate the country in a foreign
confrontation. They will want to negotiate the independence of their economic
empire.”
“Sisi was inclined to accept minimum, as opposed to what
Enan and the field marshal were asking for, which was more or less the power of
the Algerian military, combined with the legitimacy of the Turkish military,”
Mr. Ashour said, referring to the broad political powers seized by Algeria’s
generals in the 1990s and the Turkish military’s interventions in domestic
politics.
It remains to be seen whether a new formula will greatly
alter the dynamic between Egypt ’s military and civilian authorities. “Is this going to be
another partition of the military and civilian spheres, with a new group in
charge of the military sphere?” asked Robert Springborg, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School Monterey , Calif.
“Is the Brotherhood taking control of the military? Or is
it the beginning of democratic control?” he said.
And while Mr. Springborg said it was still unclear whether
the initiative had come from Mr. Morsi or the young officers, there had been
longstanding calls for change within the military. “There was widespread
disaffection on professional grounds with Tantawi and company,” he said.
Performance was not rewarded, Mr. Springborg said,
explaining that officers would be sent for training, before being sidelined.
“The assumption was that the military was for show,” he said. “Soldiers would
say: ‘They didn’t want us to do our jobs. They didn’t let us fly the planes, or
drive the tanks.’ ”
The unit commander said soldiers were poorly compensated
and saddled with failing equipment. Dissatisfaction with the military’s leaders
for staying too long grew. “For the field marshal and Enan, it’s enough,
really,” he said. “We want development. We want fresh blood. We don’t want
ministers to remain in their positions for 30 or 40 years any more.”
Mr. Morsi was left no choice but to remove Field Marshal
Tantawi, according to the unit commander. “If you asked anybody who’s ruling
the country, the answer would have been the field marshal,” he said.
That does not mean the commander and his fellow officers
are any more comfortable with the new president.
“The truth is,” he said, “we’re worried because he belongs
to the Muslim Brotherhood. We’re worried that this could be a step to win the
loyalty of the new leaders, in preparation for another step in the future.”
Still, the president picked wisely, he said, bringing in
“respectable people” who “understand the nature of our work.”
“People here are over the moon,” he said.
Elisabeth Bumiller contributed reporting
from Fort Campbell, Ky.