In many ways Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi is responsible for his own demise, but in a lot of others, everyone from young rebels to police to the military to even the people running the oil supply conspired to degrade and ultimately overthrow Morsi.
The latest evidence is the sudden end to Egypt's crippling energy shortages, as reported by Ben Hubbard and David D. Kirkpatrick in The New York Times:
The Muslim Brotherhood and Mr. Morsi’s supporters say the sudden turnaround proves that their opponents conspired to make Mr. Morsi fail. Not only did police officers seem to disappear, but the state agencies responsible for providing electricity and ensuring gas supplies failed so fundamentally that gas lines and rolling blackouts fed widespread anger and frustration.
“This was preparing for the coup,” said Naser el-Farash, who served as the spokesman for the Ministry of Supply and Internal Trade under Mr. Morsi. “Different circles in the state, from the storage facilities to the cars that transport petrol products to the gas stations, all participated in creating the crisis.”
Granted, other reporting from Al Arabiya makes clear that the energy crisis isn't exactly over.
Nonetheless, it seems apparent that organized groups put a stranglehold on an already ailing system. That organization was staggeringly deep and detailed.
An article from Mike Giglio of the Daily Beast today details to what lengths the youth rebel group, Tamarod, and the Army collaborated in the time leading up to the coup:
In the days and weeks before the protests, Waleed al-Masry, a central organizer, was in regular contact with a group of retired military officers. These retired officers, Masry says, promised to protect the protesters who turned out on June 30. They said they were reaching out on behalf of the Army’s current commanders. “We didn’t ask them for help. They just offered it,” Masry says. “And we welcomed that.”
Masry and the rebels not only gained the cooperation of the army, but also of the police and the recently snubbed judicial system.
“The country’s institutions—the police, the Army, the judges—were clear from their messages in the media that they were in favor of getting rid of [Morsi]," Moheb Doss, one of Tamarod’s co-founders and main organizers, told The Beast. Then they received “individual communications between Tamarod people and state institutions.”
Finally there was the funding, both internally and externally.
The Times details how former judge Tahani el-Gebali, former adviser Shawki al-Sayed, and Naguib Sawiris, a billionaire and an outspoken foe of the Brotherhood, all pitched in cash and organizing efforts to wear at the base of the Morsi regime.
And just this week, an Al Jazeera exclusive from Emad Mekay exposed how Washington had funneled money to secular opposition groups in Egypt:
Documents obtained by the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley show the US channeled funding ... [that] ... vigorously supported activists and politicians who have fomented unrest in Egypt, after autocratic president Hosni Mubarak was ousted in a popular uprising in February 2011.
Seems like a well-organized effort to sabotage Morsi, no?
Except that Morsi's moves to consolidate power and install Sharia Law began almost as soon as he took office. His concerns, it seemed, focused more on telling women how to talk to their husbands than with rebuilding Egypt.
Those actions predate the actions of the young Tamarod agents who took to the streets, some for 16 hours a day, collecting signatures for the ouster of Morsi.
In that way, Morsi made his own end. Now he has no choice but to own it, conspiracy or not.