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Press TV has conducted an interview with James Petras, Middle East expert, about supporters of ousted Egyptian president Morsi calling for the fall of the army-backed government.

- This situation in Egypt is extremely, extremely complex. Muslim Brotherhood supporters continue to take to the streets - Do you think that by them continuing demonstrating that they will ultimately be able to put enough pressure on this military regime in Egypt to actually... I’m sure they will not be able to get Morsi back in power, but at least to get a lessening of pressure on the Muslim Brotherhood? How do you see this now playing itself out?

- I think the key factor here is that the military doesn’t have an organized political base. It has no formal political organization; it depends on the deep state of the Mubarak regime; it has its mobs that it can put on the streets; it has its paramilitary military forces.

But that’s no way to govern a country, especially since the financial situation is so dire and there are pressures from the International monetary Fund (IMF) and financial institutions to implement an end to the subsidies, which would be a very unpopular move.

I think what’s down the road is that the regime doesn’t have an agenda for getting any legitimacy or political or social backing. So I think the effort by the military to placate its potential international financiers is going to be very costly. It will alienate far more numerous of the public than supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood.

And I think the day the military sits down and begins to fashion an economic agenda beginning with its attempt to secure external finances, it will run into a storm because a central part of that economic agenda is ending subsidies on food and petrol and cooking oil and other essentials.

So I think we’ll see larger and bigger protests and more violent protests. I think that’s down the road and I think the presence of the Muslim Brotherhood will be augmented by these secular and mass forces that will be out, not because of Morsi, but because of the pain that’s being inflicted by the government. I don’t see this government as having a future.

- So you’re saying basically that you’re expecting more and more people to take to the streets and actually go against... do you think that they would be able to overthrow this current regime, or what exactly are you saying?

- Well, it would be impossible for them to implement - the military junta - it would be impossible for them to implement their economic agenda, fulfill their promises to the International Monetary Fund at which point they will have to modify their political rule or they will be in dire economic crisis. Without external financing and without internal support, they’ll fall between two chairs.

The US government is very concerned not with the dictatorship per se, but the fact that it doesn’t have a power sharing agreement with a viable political force.

They would have liked to see the military align itself with Brotherhood in implementing the IMF agenda, with the Muslim Brotherhood cushioning the social effects and the military ensuring the program is carried out. That fell through.