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With Libya providing huge percentages of the oil and gas imported by powerful European countries – especially Italy – and with the UK working hard the last several years to burnish Libya’s image so that British Petroleum could claim a privileged stake in the Libyan oil industry and General Dynamics UK could sign lucrative weapons contracts, western countries came late and soft to criticize Qaddafy’s violent assault.

As the day went by, the 30 June anti-Morsi demonstrations turned out to probably be the largest ever in Egyptian history, with Egyptians from all walks of life peacefully, yet audaciously, denouncing the Brotherhood’s rule.

The Egyptian people’s defiance of Brotherhood rule is a serious popular challenge to the most significant strategic reordering of the region perhaps since the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916.

As the Egyptian army stepped up its game midday on Monday, and checkmated Morsi by issuing a forty-eight-hour ultimatum to respond to the people’s demands, these same media circuits started a concerted effort to bring the “coup d’état” discourse, sometimes forcefully, to the forefront of the discussion about events in Egypt.

Millions have taken to the streets since January 2011 demanding jobs, income, democratic rights and a shift in the relations between Egypt and Israel that has been frozen since the advent of the Camp David Accords signed in 1979. Egyptian workers and youth have played a pivotal role in these struggles through mass demonstrations, strikes and rebellions. Just recently workers in the utility sector and the arts have staged occupations demanding better wages and conditions of employment.

The Guardian newspaper reported recently that ‘Hundreds of British troops are being prepared to deploy to North Africa to tackle al Qaeda-inspired extremists. Under secret plans being drawn up urgently by top brass, UK soldiers would be sent ‘within months’ to the region to help train the Libyan army.’ (1 July) This plan will involve at least 2,000 Libyan ‘soldiers’ who will be trained in an effort to counter so-called ‘terrorist’ threats in Libya and throughout the region.

However, a number of political questions remain outstanding. Will the FJP and other Islamic parties be allowed full participation in the proposed elections? Also will conditions improve for the Egyptian workers, farmers and youth under the interim governing council? In all likelihood the problems of massive unemployment and poverty will continue with no program aimed at empowering the majority within society.

Too many of those who participated didn’t see – for generational reasons, largely – that in order to hit home you have to have some form of political movement. It wasn’t surprising that the Muslim Brotherhood, which had taken part in the protests in Egypt at a late stage, took power: it was the only real political party in Egypt. But then the Brotherhood played straight into the hands of the military by behaving like Mubarak – by offering deals to the security services, offering deals to the Israelis – so people began to wonder what the point was of having them in power. The military was thus able to mobilise support and get rid of the Brotherhood. All this has demoralised an entire generation in the Middle East.

At the lunch, he said: ‘Now it’s time for questions – I’ll start off. Tariq Ali, I read the piece you wrote in the Guardian arguing that Tony Blair should be charged for war crimes in the International Criminal Court. Do you mind explaining why?’ I spent about ten minutes explaining, to the bemusement of the Syrian guests. At the end the ambassador said: ‘Well, I agree totally with that – I don’t know about the rest of you.’ After the guests had left, I said: ‘That was very courageous of you.’ And the MI6 man who was at the lunch said: ‘Yeah, he can do that, because he’s retiring in December.’ But a similar thing happened at the embassy in Vienna, where I gave a press conference attacking the Iraq war in the British ambassador’s living room. These people aren’t fools – they knew exactly what they were doing. And they acted as they did as a result of the humiliation they felt at having a government which, even though the Americans had said they could manage without the UK, insisted on joining in anyway.

The Greeks are being punished not so much for the debt as for their failure to make the reforms demanded by the EU. The right-wing government Syriza defeated only managed to push through three of the 14 reforms the EU insisted on. They couldn’t do more because what they did push through helped create a situation in Greece which has some similarities with Iraq: demodernisation; totally unnecessary privatisations, linked to political corruption; the immiseration of ordinary people.