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condemns removal of Morsi as a military uprising, coup, anti-democratic

It has been especially surprising to watch many Egyptians and Americans try to cast a military coup - which is what the army executed when it deposed Mr. Morsi, detaining him and many of his Brotherhood allies - as a democratic tool. The Obama administration, hoping to avoid a legally mandated cutoff of United States aid to Egypt, thus further inflaming anti-Americanism there, has used tortuous rhetoric to avoid calling a coup a coup, or even condemning it. So have many lawmakers and analysts who say the surest way to protect American interests in the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, the Suez Canal and Egypt's cooperation in countering terrorism is to work with the army, Egypt's most powerful institution. A different but equally pragmatic case is made by Egyptian liberals, secularists and non-Islamists who bravely took to the streets to force the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, voted (in many cases) for Mr. Morsi, then turned against him. As Mr. Morsi proved increasingly eager to impose Islamic authoritarianism on the country, the opposition said it collected more than 20 million signatures on a petition demanding his removal (surpassing the 13 million votes Mr. Morsi won in the 2012 election ) and rallied millions of protesters. In their analysis, the army was simply honoring the people's will when it forced Mr. Morsi out. Some Egyptians say they will do that again if the next president also fails them. The basic flaw in these arguments is that coups, forcible overthrows, whatever one calls them, do not provide a foundation for stability or sound representative government. And unlike Mr. Mubarak, Mr. Morsi was not an autocrat imposed by the army, but the country's first freely elected president. True, he was a disastrous leader. But as The Times has reported, remnants of Mr. Mubarak's old order worked hard to sabotage him. It would have been better if his opposition, including the protesters, had worked to defeat him at the ballot box.

In Egypt, fear of the Muslim Brotherhood - by secularists, liberals and religious minorities - is already leading many who once condemned the army to accept it as a neutral arbiter. In such an environment, it is unlikely that genuine democratic government will emerge; instead Egypt is likely to experience some form of "military-guided democracy," as has happened in Indonesia, Pakistan and other states with powerful generals. The tragedy of this pattern is clear: It allows the military to tame democracy, without being accountable to voters or being responsible for improving governance.