Playing Calvinball the players make up the rules while the game is ongoing. The Egyptian revolution confirms again that it is olayed under such rules.
Egyptian President Mursi just send Defense Minister Tantawi and the Chief-of-Staff Sami Annan into retirement. He also canceled the June 17 addendum to the constitution which gave the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces special powers while it limited his own powers as president.
Mursi appointed General Abdellatif Sisi, a former head of military intelligence, to command the military and the former judge Mekky as vice-president. Mursi had once promised to have a Christian and a woman as vice-presidents. Mahmoud Mekky is neither.
The move comes after some incidents in the Sinai where some shady groups of alleged radicals launched attacks on the armed forces. While big successful counterattacks were reported in the Egyptian state media, local reporting did not confirm those at all. No wounded were found in the hospitals and no fresh graves in the cemeteries. This media manipulation may be one of the reasons for Mursi's surprising move today.
One wonders what the Egyptian military is going to do about this. Will it really give up the powers it held over the last 50 or so years? Doing so would endanger its wide economic interests that guarantees its officer class' standard of living. That is one reason to expect a reaction by some officer group.
But there also might be a backdoor deal between the new head of the military and Mursi. Not everyone in the army was happy with Tantawi at the head of the SCAF. A deal might give both sides some guarantees and incentives to not allow any counter-move.
Egypt just received a $2 billion loan from Qatar. This after a request for further loans from Saudi Arabia was rejected. The loan again shows the preference of the Qatari ruler for the Muslim Brotherhood of which Mursi was a leading member. The money may have been instrumental to allow for today's steps.
During the last year the Muslim Brotherhood had already taken several steps in different directions than promised. These were seen by large parts of the populations as power grab and overreach. Many saw the Supreme Command and its special powers as the only balance against the Islamist power play. If Mursi does not have the backing of the public at large for the steps to dictatorial power he took today, which I find likely, we can expect a renewed crisis in Egypt and another military coup.