Farouk or Nasser?

Richard Cavendish remembers Abdul Fattah al-Sisi's King Farouk's succession to the Egyptian throne on April 28th, 1936 (History Today 61, April 2011). Or were the army officers on the other side, at least by 1952? ("Egypt wonders if army chief General Sisi is another Nasser," Martin Chulov, Guardian News Service, Cairo, August 09, 2013)

Military Officers + The People = Co-Rule?

12:05 CST.  MSNBC discussing whether it is a military coup.  Richard Engel notes it is "a bloodless military coup."

12:00 CST.  Aljazeera has an article on "Egypt's military leadership," which profiles the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (11 Feb 2011)

Defence Minister Mohammed Hussein Tantawi
11:50 CST.  Anderson Cooper asking Mohamed ElBaradei about how you keep the revolution from being "betrayed" (odd word, evidently coming from a CIA adviser), Mr. ElBaradei answers "the Army must co-rule with the people (my paraphrase).  Uppermost on everyone's mind.

Does Hope Spring From the Barrel of a Tank?:  the Problem with Relying on Military Officers to Foster Change

Thoughtful detail from Londonistani on the roots of the Egyptian protests.  Americans have to ask how much and for how long they are willing to fund those officers.

• Mubarak...was the fourth leader of the Egypt's Free Officers' regime which came to power in a military coup against a constitutional monarchy in 1952. Egypt has a long history of being at the forefront of Middle East affairs and its people have a strong sense of pride. Political squabbling, corrupt politicians and disastrous war against the newly formed state of Israel motivated the middle class military professionals to remove their king, and British influence along with him. The coup's leader, Gamal Abdul Nasser, made Egypt the focal point of Arab hopes and earned their eternal admiration. In reality, he achieved little. His successor, Anwar el-Sadat switched the regime from the pro-Soviet to the pro-Western camp during the cold war. Sadat realised post-independence Egypt's central problem; it's economic muscle didn't match its ambition....
• Egypt's military leaders['s]...phobia of political competition acquired by their experience of the constitutional monarchy they replaced prodded them to the conclusion that Egyptians were not ready for democracy....
• [T]he problem with a rule-by-military-clique approach to government is that it does little for long-term development. Sadat's solution to this problem was to leverage Egypt's strategic value to the United States as a source of income. ("Mubarak and Me," January 31, 2011, Londonstani, Abu Muqawama)