Fireworks booming, military helicopters circling overhead and posters of “lion-hearted” Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at every turn continue to mark the celebratory mood in Tahrir Square. The irony weighs heavily when remembering the ardent anti-military protests camped out in the square less than two years ago under the rule of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and the brutality with which security forces repeatedly crushed them.

Days before Egypt’s first democratic parliamentary elections in November 2011, the Muslim Brotherhood, which anticipated a strong performance, refused to support demonstrations against the SCAF after initially being anti-SCAF, not wanting to upset the military establishment.

How the tables have turned, again, with the Brotherhood finding itself at the mercy of the ruthless military hand it once uncomfortably backed to achieve its own ends. Complacent in the military’s vicious crackdowns against peaceful demonstrators — one of its biggest betrayals of the post-revolutionary period — the Brotherhood is condemned to a similar fate.

Since deposed president Mohammed Morsi’s overthrow, the two large-scale killings of Brotherhood demonstrators, seen as violent extremists by many, have evoked little sympathy from the public. A more thorough eviction of pro-Morsi demonstrators from Rabia and Nahda Squares is expected in the coming days.