What if the military coup never happened in Egypt?
I would GUESS that is a military coup had not occurred, Egypt would either have a lame duck President unable to conduct necessary/wanted reforms or a President that was still proxy controlled by the military due to the Egyptian military's outsized influence over Egypt. Egypt, Iran, and Pakistan all share a similar characteristic which is their military forces(With Iran it's more it's parallel shadow force the IRGC) have very outsized control over they relative economies. Somewhere in the order of 33%+ GDP due to military owned business/industry and even monopoly.So even with a fairly elected Egyptian president, the military influence and control would be strongly felt. As far as US support for an Egyptian military dictator or popularly elected president(in Egypt or anywhere in that region), I would like to see a policy of quite support for military dictatorship, but only conditionally and heavily focused on metrics to verify strong improvements in average quality of life and standard of living as well as limits to human rights violations.Security, stability, opportunity......with a distinct ratcheting up in all, as well as human rights following in lockstep behind.Then focus on individual voting rights when the country can "afford it" as you can't eat a vote.Just my opinion.
Is what happened in Egypt considered a coup?
No . Millions went to streets to protest against Morsi , in fact much more people that protested against Mubarak and caused his resignation. The difference is that Mubarak resigned to avoid conflict and crashes between protesters and police or army . The army wouldn't have helped Mubarak crack down on civilians . In Morsi’s case , he refused to arrange for an early election and insisted on his position so the army had to overthrow him to avoid clashes between protesters and Muslim brotherhood supporters who are violent and threatend and carried on the terrorist attacks happening in Egypt .In conclusion, it's not a coup as the army moved after the people of Egypt to fulfill their demands , it didn't move before the people .
How do Americans justify supporting a military coup in Egypt? Shouldn't America support democracy?
The United States will support any government that interests them. It does not matter what kind of government it is. Look at the evil empire of Saudi Arabia. It’s one of the most oppressive regimes in the world, yet the United States supports it. In Saudi Arabia people get their heads, limbs and arms cut off every day but no body is talking about it.
Is the recent coup in Egypt tacitly supported by the US?
Unstable Egypt ( which we see now) is also something that US doesn't welcome. I think US is enough big and powerful that it can lead many condition until the result is not conflicting to its objectives.
Compare and contrast Iranian and Egyptian revolutions?
Ultimately the main commonalities come from the fact that both countries were under the rule of Monarchies that were perceived to be siding with the western powers namely Britain, the US and the USSR over their own people. In the case of Egypt, Britain had direct control over the Suez canal and had just recently lost the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, these two points made the ruling Monarch look very weak and hence was a source of shame for the Egyptian people. Iran was ruled by the Shah of Iran who not only took power from a democratically elected Prime Minister with the help of a British, US backed coup some years earlier but was also doing little to relieve financial hardship in the country that accounted for an unemployment rate of something like 30% from memory. The commonalities I believe can be found in the two countries siding with outside powers with little regard for their own people breeding discontent and ultimately opening the way for the strong leaders of Nasser and Ayatollah Khomeini. The above are quite good starting points for you and I would recommend searching google scholar and google books for information.
Why did the military totally drop the ball after the coup in Egypt?
I agree with John Burgess, they knew what they were doing. We were fed the story that a majority of Egyptians had rejected Morsi. Had this been true, there would have been every reason to push for an early vote. So it's not true. Total baloney. Two-thirds of the voters had voted for some sort of Islamism. Morsi was overthrown because he was trying to implement the will of the majority. The protestors were a mixed bag, many former supporters of the Mubarak regime, some harder-line Islamists and some liberals, but they are a smaller faction than their media appearance suggested. In the Egyptian parliamentary election, 2011–12, a block led by the Muslim Brotherhood won 37.5% of the vote and 45% of the seats. Next came the Islamist Bloc, two Salafist parties in alliance who got 28% of the vote and 25% of the seats. Third was New Wafd Party, secular and state-orientated, got 9% of the votes and 7.5% of the seats The strongest more-or-less liberal party was the Egyptian Bloc, 9% of the votes and 6.5% of the seats. National Democratic Party, the official party under Mubarak and Sadat, got 6.5% of the votes and 3.5% of the seats. (All figures rounded to the nearest half percentage, and with many more small parties making up the balance.) The protests that undermined Morsi was a mix of incompatible elements, including the Salafists, old-regime and liberals. Together these had a majority for overthrowing Morsi, but not for anything else. New elections would almost certainly confirm that the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists between them have a clear majority. But the coup was broadly old-regime, though including some Islamist elements opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt's liberals should have learned from the election that they are maybe one in ten and need to compromise. Instead they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing. The situation now is horrible. I'd expect the next stage to be Civil War and a mass flight of both Egyptian liberals and the Coptic Christian minority. One more group of Middle-Eastern Christians destroyed by Western "help".
Military coup in the US?
Even this highest ranking military officials are still subject to authority of their civilian leaders; the President and Congress. No General in the US military would even consider pulling that off. Even if they did, they would have to convince their subordinate leaders to do it, or cover ther actions with seemingly good intentions. No, there is no document which says how the military would take out the government, that would be contradictory to the purpose of a military. We wouldn't return the power. There would be no way to succefully do it. If you destroy one government and replace it with another, what are you going to model the new government after? You can't model it after the old one, it already failed. Reuilding it would just be asking for failure later down the road. Voters can't decide on anything, how would they decide on how a new government would run?
Why do egyptians hate Mohamed Morsi?
Morsi was becoming more of a dictator every day. After enshrining Sharia law in the newly drafted constitution, he granted himself sweeping authority to pass any law that would 'advance the revolution', which is such a vague term that it implies unchecked extensive powers. Then he made himself immune from judicial oversight. Neither [former presidents] Nasser, nor Sadat, nor Mubarak had the power that Morsi gave himself. Egypt is predominantly Muslim, with Muslims accounting for between 80% and 90%. Most of those are Sunni. A significant number are Sufi. A minority of a few thousand are Mu-Tazila and Sharia Twelvers & Ismailism. The Muslims hate Morsi for not proceeding fast enough with the Islamization -- and primarily because he hasn't scrapped the hated Camp David Accords and gone on jihad against Israel. (That's why they got rid of Mubarak, also with a military coup). In addition, the Morsi administration repeatedly broke promises —including appointing a female vice president, and a Coptic Christian deputy. About 10-20% (around 12-16 million) of the population are members of an Oriental Coptic Orthodox Christian Church. About 300,000 Egyptians are protestants. The total is about 15-20 million Christians. The secularist protesters didn't like the Islamization of the country and the full imposition of Sharia Law, and also don't like the Muslim Brotherhood. Also, unemployment is high. Egypt straddles the Suez Canal, so the whole world is watching this nervously. ##