Top US Military Officer Calls Egyptian Counterpart

[Purveyor]

Source: REUTERS

WASHINGTON: General Martin Dempsey, the top US military officer, called the chief of staff of Egypt's armed forces on Monday morning, a US defense official told Reuters, without providing details on the conversation.

The call by Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to Egypt's Sedki Sobhi came the same day that Egypt's armed forces handed Islamist President Mohamed Morsi a virtual ultimatum to share power.

Egypt's military gave feuding politicians 48 hours to compromise or have the army impose its own road map for the country.

The United States has close ties with Egypt's armed forces, providing $1.3 billion a year to the country in military aid. The Pentagon declined to speculate on the Egyptian statement earlier on Monday and what it meant for the country's future.

Read more: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Top-US-military-officer-calls-Egyptian-counterpart/articleshow/20868249.cms

[Igel]

1. This is going to be tricky.

The Egyptian Army backing the forces of democracy against a president that resulted from the elections that the forces of democracy managed to get held, elections with results that the forces of democracy decried because they failed to win as they expected.

It's not like they ever liked the election results. Perhaps they just need to keep overthrowing the government until they're finally elected out of sheer electoral fatigue and disqualification of everybody else.

It'll be interesting to see how many ways we can thread the needle on this one.

Sometimes elections have consequences. And sometimes you just keeping asking for a mulligan until the consequences are that you win.