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A Complete Analysis Of Egypt's Textbook Coup

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On July 3, as the Egyptian military prepared to oust President Mohamed Morsi, FT's Joseph Cotterill tweeted a chart from Edward Luttwak's 1968 book Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook.

At 1:51 p.m. EDT, BI executive editor Joe Weisenthal wrote: "For what it's worth, if reports are true in Egypt, then this is a textbook coup."

At 2:57 p.m. EDT, the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper reported that Morsi had been informed he was no longer president. 

Since then there has been a debate about whether the military's removal of the country's (first) democratically-elected leader was a unquestionably a coupnot a coup but a people's revolution, or an ambiguous people'scoup.

In an attempt to put the argument to rest, here's a breakdown (corresponding to Luttwak's chart) of why Morsi's toppling was a textbook coup.

coupA TEAMS: The military's first reported move involved taking over state-run media and then beefing up its presence at the massive headquarters.

Troops then deployed near protest sites and key facilities while others blockadedbridges.

B TEAMS: The most important target was the people. To neutralize the potential for chaos, the army deployed troops at Cairo University — a hotbed of Pro-Morsi supporters — and began regulating the crowds.

Troops also took up positions Alexandria and Giza, which are the country's second and third largest cities.

C TEAMS: Instead of making a 12:00 p.m. EDT statement as expected, the military placed a travel ban on the president and other top Muslim Brotherhood figures.

Morsi was then detained and taken to an undisclosed location.

To round things outs after Military chief General Abdel Fattah announced Morsi's removalthe military broke into a live Al Jazeera broadcast to arrest reporters and shut down coverage.

As far as coups d'état go, that's how it's done. 

The U.S., meanwhile, is "just not taking a position on this specific case,” according to State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

That's because America would have no choice but to cut off its $1.3 billion in military aid assistance to Egypt in the case of a coup.

Matthew Lee of The Associated Press perfectly sums up America's position (emphasis ours):

The Obama administration signaled Monday that U.S. national security interests will trump its promotion of Egypt's budding democracy, stressing the importance of continued aid to the Egyptian military, which overthrew the elected president last week.

Notably, a senior U.S. official told Haaretz that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials urged senior U.S. officials "not to respond to Egypt’s coup" by halting the military aid.

SEE ALSO: MASSACRE IN EGYPT: At Least 51 Morsi Supporters Killed In Shooting At Army Barracks

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