More Sit-Ins Planned

The Interior Ministry, the government department in control of the police and a mainstay for Mubarak loyalists, has outlined its purported strategy for dismantling the two sit-ins, one in Nasr City next to Rabaa al-Adawiya Mosque and the other in Nahda Square across from Cairo University. David Kirkpatrick has the story this morning, "Police Put Off Dispersal of Pro-Morsi Sit-Ins":

Interior Ministry officials said Sunday that they would move in slowly, gradually surrounding the sit-ins to cut off any shipments of food and water. The officials said they would eventually block any entrance but leave one exit open so that demonstrators could leave at will. 

After that, the ministry officials said, the police will gradually step up the use of nonlethal tactics, including tear gas and water cannons. But it was unclear whether the police intended to escalate their pressure over a matter of hours, days or weeks. 

How the police would handle resistance was another question, especially with both sides on edge after the recent deadly clashes. The demonstrators have already erected barricades and stored piles of rocks to throw at attackers. Birdshot pellets and homemade handguns have become increasingly common at Egyptian street protests, including among Islamists. 

Government officials have accused the Islamists of stockpiling weapons, although both sit-ins appear to be overwhelmingly peaceful. 

Brotherhood leaders said Sunday that their demonstrations would remain nonviolent even if the police moved in. Gehad el-Haddad, a Brotherhood spokesman, all but dared them to try. “If they try to disperse the sit-ins by force, we will just create a new sit-in, or multiple sit-ins,” he said. “It is the people who make the sit-ins, not the sit-ins that make the cause.”

With their reputation for organization, I'm sure the Muslim Brotherhood already has locations selected for multiple sit-ins. They appear to hold an advantage over the coup administration at this point. The fact that the crackdown has been called off up until now is proof of this. Strains in the coup administration are beginning to manifest themselves. Mohamed ElBaradei, the interim vice president and advocate of a "go-slow" approach on the sit-ins, has begun to be savaged in the coup press. According to Kirkpatrick,

Mr. ElBaradei is “dangerous to the people and the state,” a headline in a state-run newspaper recently declared. He is working for the Islamists to “thwart the revolution,” encouraging their “sabotaging” and destructive inclusion in politics, charged a columnist in the state-run newspaper Al Akhbar, laying out an attack still echoing through the privately owned news media as well. 

In a Twitter message on Sunday afternoon, he fired back at the news media attacks, calling them “desperate attempts to sustain tyranny.” He declined a request to comment.

Kirkpatrick reports that the Brotherhood is willing to sacrifice the Morsi presidency as long he is reinstated temporarily in order to swiftly transfer power, lending the whole sordid mess a look of legality.

It's highly unlikely this will be the outcome. On the one hand you have Saudi Arabia, Israel, U.A.E., and all they want is a return of Mubarakism. On the other hand, you have the United States and Europe, and they want some sort of accommodation with political Islam. The intelligence agencies of the West see that the Arab Spring has changed things irrevocably and that there's no going back.

Going forward, there will likely be an attempt to maintain the status quo. This means a gradual rather than a brutal crackdown on the two sit-ins, followed by a relocation of the sit-ins to another part of Cairo. The conflict will be kept simmering but all hell won't break loose. Of course, it goes without saying, there's always the possibility that all hell could break loose.