In the space of a few short days, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has pulled off a lightning-swift realignment of the country's political map. On Aug. 12, Morsi assumed powers as vast as those of his predecessor, the deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak. And, incredibly, he did it without immediately triggering either street protests or a countermove by Egypt’s erstwhile all-powerful military.
The curiously quiet reaction -- a nonreaction, really -- from the military suggests the soft coup did not happen in a vacuum: Morsi probably laid the groundwork within some sectors of the armed forces.
But if that may explain the lack of tanks in the streets, it does not explain why no crowds filled Tahrir Square demanding real democracy, as they did last year to trigger the revolution.