Abstract
Stunned by the power of the masses to bring down arguably the Middle East’s strongest and most resilient leader, the world watched in disbelief as the Egyptian people ousted Hosni Mubarak from power on February 11, 2011. Exuberant crowds cried, embraced, and sang in Tahrir Square with the news; overcome by emotion at their hard-won (and at times, doubtful) victory, thousands chanted: “The people, at last, have brought down the regime!” Soldiers were embraced and celebrated as heroes. Despite the generally effusive reception the army received since its intervention to establish order, however, it displayed serious reluctance in siding with “the street.” Only after expending all other options, and as a last-ditch effort to secure its own position of preeminence in Egyptian society, did the military usher Mubarak out of Cairo.
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Notes
The latter view is presented by Hazem Kandil, Soldiers, Spies, and Statesmen: Egypt’s Road to Revolt (London: Verso, 2012).
In piecing together this timeline, I drew extensively upon the following sources: Amnesty International, “Egypt Rises: Killings, Detentions and Torture in the ’25 January Revolution,” 19 May 2011, http://www.amnesty. org/en/library/info/MDE12/027/2011 “Popular Protest in North Africa and the Middle East (I): Egypt Victorious?” Middle East/North Africa Report N°107, International Crisis Group (ICG), February 24, 2011; Robin Wright, Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion across the Islamic World (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012);
Ashraf Khalil, Liberation Square: Inside the Egyptian Revolution and the Rebirth of a Nation (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2011);
Wael Ghonim, Revolution 2.0: The Power of the People Is Greater than the People in Power (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012); US, British, and Middle East news syndicates; and author’s interviews with US government officials with knowledge of Egyptian affairs.
International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2011 (London: Taylor and Francis, 2011), 474.
Steven Cook, Ruling but Not Governing (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).
Muhammad Abdul Aziz and Youssef Hussein, “The President, the Son and Military Succession in Egypt,” Arab Studies Journal 9, 10 (Fall 2001/Spring 2002): 82.
Kenneth Pollack, The Sphinx and the Eagle: The Egyptian Armed Forces and Egyptian-American Military Ties (Washington, DC: Institute for National Strategic Studies and National Defense University, 1998).
Osman, “Profile of Egypt’s Military.” Through a series of steps, Mubarak tried to warm the military to his son, Gamal. He seated Gamal among military generals during Hosni’s address to the army in 2005. He also cajoled Sulieman to serve as a witness to Gamal’s wedding in 2007. See Roger Owen, The Rise and Fall of Arab Presidents for Life (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012), 71.
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© 2014 William C. Taylor
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Taylor, W.C. (2014). The Egyptian Military’s “Reluctant Support” of the Arab Awakening. In: Military Responses to the Arab Uprisings and the Future of Civil-Military Relations in the Middle East. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137410054_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137410054_6
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