If you are going to intervene in a foreign country, it helps to know what you want to happen. But on Egypt – and Syria, too – western policy is buffeted by a mass of conflicting instincts. The US and the EU are pro-democracy but anti-Islamist; pro-stability but anti-crackdown; opposed both to jihadists and to their enemies in the security state. No wonder that the Arab world is confused. The one thing that unites the Egyptian military and the Muslim Brotherhood is that they both claim to have been betrayed by the US.
If America and its European allies are to frame a coherent response to the tragedy in Egypt, they urgently need to clarify their goals.
Listing those goals in no particular order is relatively easy: end bloodshed, restore stability, fight terrorism, promote political freedom, keep our consciences clean, preserve alliances, stabilise economies, prevent a war with Israel and stop new regional conflicts. In the heady days of the Arab spring, it was possible to believe that a single policy – supporting the spread of democracy – ticked all these boxes. The new democracies would be more prosperous, more peaceful and more pro-western. The roots of terrorism would wither away.