The second Egyptian revolution

In early 2011, President Obama made clear that Hosni Mubarak, the long-term president of Egypt, and a staunch U.S. ally, had to surrender power in the face of mass public protests.

Regional experts, including the Saudi and Jordanian governments, warned that Mubarak's ouster and the quick elections demanded by the U.S. would lead to victories for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Ignoring this advice, the Obama administration's obvious, public and humiliating abandonment of the Egyptian leader made an Islamist takeover all but inevitable. The Egyptian military, terrified of civil war, nudged Mubarak into retirement -- which soon devolved into house arrest and a criminal trial.

As predicted, the radical Muslim Brotherhood, the best organized force in Egypt, swept parliamentary and presidential elections in 2011 and 2012.

The presidential election of 2012, however, showed that the Egyptians were quickly realizing the incompetence and nefariousness of the Brotherhood; despite its control over the media, the electoral system and the public square, the Islamist party's candidate, Mohammed Morsi, won with less than 52 percent over retired Air Force Gen. Ahmed Shafik, an ally and former cabinet official for the ousted Mubarak.

For someone so closely associated with the former regime to do so well against the hand-picked nominee of the Muslim Brotherhood foreshadowed the systemic failure of the Islamist government of Egypt.

In addition to grasping for exclusive power, by excluding liberal, secular and Christian participants from the writing of a constitution, Morsi and his colleagues presided over a collapsing economy, did little to stem rising internal violence, exhibiting an inability -- or unwillingness -- to provide law and order.

The much-vaunted tourism sector quickly fell into shambles, Egypt's foreign currency reserves dwindled to nothing, and the morale of the military, among the most powerful in the Arab world, disintegrated in the face of criminal prosecutions, anti-military whisperings by the government and firings of key military figures -- even those who had helped oust the Mubarak regime.

Tensions rose not only with Israel -- a predictable outcome given the anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism of the Muslim Brotherhood -- but also with fellow Arab states and the European Union.

Morsi's appointment of a former terrorist as regional governor over the tourism-dependent province of Luxor exemplified the disdain with which the Muslim Brotherhood regarded its citizens.

The official in question, Adel el-Khayat, was part of a group that engineered a massacre of 58 foreign tourists in 1997, hardly a qualification for someone to assure Westerners.

While El-Khayat eventually resigned, his party continued as part of the governing coalition until the end. Abuses created a flood of potential émigrés seeking the liberties guaranteed, but not honored, by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Egypt under the Muslim Brotherhood received uncritical support from the Obama administration. Secretary of State John Kerry recently certified that Egypt was respecting democratic processes, in compliance with a U.S. law that aid would only continue if Cairo was "implementing policies to protect freedom of expression, association and religion, and due process of law."

This allowed the Egyptians to receive aid and loan guarantees, despite brutal crackdowns on nongovernmental organizations, arrest of human rights activists, ongoing persecution of Coptic Christians and the deployment of Islamist mobs against secular parties and opposition forces.

The U.S. also leaned on the IMF and other international financial institutions to provide continued assistance. Most shockingly, given the current U.S. budget challenges, President Obama authorized the forgiveness of $1 billion in loans to Egypt. That amount of money puts administration complaints about the sequester in perspective.

In this context, the mass demonstrations during the past weeks, involving millions of Egyptians, were a legitimate expression of popular disgust with the Muslim Brotherhood.

The intervention of the Egyptian military represented an expression of the general will of the Egyptian people, not a military coup.

While it is true that Morsi was elected, the Muslim Brotherhood rushed for an early election, before potential alternatives could organize, a process encouraged by the Obama administration, and also manipulated its own constitution to centralize power in an undemocratic fashion.

The initial steps taken by the interim president of Egypt, Adly Mahmud Mansour, and his newly appointed prime minister, Hazem el-Beblawi, a former finance minister, are positive.

Unlike Morsi, who grabbed additional powers for himself illegally, Mansour, most recently the chief judge of Egypt's highest court, has not only announced limitations on his own power, but has already brought together a remarkable coalition, from the most liberal parties to Islamist ones, to lay out a transitional plan to create an inclusive and genuinely democratic system.

The United States should continue to provide military and economic aid to the interim Egyptian government, as well as assistance to the nongovernmental and civic organizations that will be essential to this transition.

The early indications from the Obama administration along these lines have been favorable. Egypt is in the midst of the second phase of the Arab Spring. Unlike the initial phase of 2011, which led from one autocratic leader to another, one can hope that this time the Egyptians will be more fortunate, and cautious, in moving toward the freedoms, constitutional system and prosperity that reflects their best aspirations.

Wayne Bowen, a U.S. Army veteran, received his Ph.D. in history from Northwestern University. He resides in Cape Girardeau.