The political crisis in Egypt reached a dangerous new phase following the collapse of an international effort to bridge the gap between the two sides and avert bloodshed. Envoys from the United States, European Union, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates had been trying to persuade the military to avoid a direct confrontation with protesters at the pair of Muslim Brotherhood sit-in sites, Rabaa and Nahda, but such a deal could not be obtained. The statement from the president’s office that the period of international efforts that lasted more than 10 days had “ended today” was so curt that the government appears to have been fed up with what it considered unacceptable meddling from the West, and can’t wait to break up the protests by force to deal a mortal blow to the Brotherhood.

The government is basically under pressure by many at home to end the sit-ins by hook or by crook but abroad it is asked to either allow the sit-ins to continue as long as they are peaceful or end them but without force.

Naturally, the security forces should be mindful of the need to bring the stalemate to an end with as little bloodshed as possible, however, an evacuation without deaths is almost impossible. Twice in the past few weeks, the police have clashed with protesters in those neighborhoods, leaving scores dead. The government’s blaming of the Brotherhood for the failure in negotiations and holding it responsible for the consequences, in addition to its earlier declaration that these protest camps constitute a threat to national security, and mandated the Interior Ministry to remove them both, strongly suggests that the demos will soon be terminated, in all likelihood forcibly.

Unless some sort of political solution is reached. The Muslim Brotherhood’s leaders insist that they will hold fast to their position that  Mohamed Morsi, the ousted Islamist president, now in detention, must be reinstated, as must the previously elected parliament, and a 2012 version of the constitution that the interim government has now set to work amending. None of these demands will be met; the new government has made it clear time will not go backwards. So any settlement would have to involve other factors, including a dignified exit for Morsi, Brotherhood acceptance of the new situation, the release of political prisoners arrested since the takeover, and a future political role for the Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood though is not ready to give up. Protesters insist that they will not be swayed by the military’s threats of action and will quit neither the squares nor their demands that Morsi and his government be reinstated.

In the month since Morsi’s ouster, around 300 people have been killed, making the country more divisive and without any obvious path to reconciliation. Neither side acknowledges the other side’s point of view, and each side firmly believes the other is simply not thinking straight.

The division more closely resembles a standoff with little room for compromise. Still, there might be space for negotiations. Warnings and threats by both sides could be now part of a process of concessions. Both sides are intimidating each other and both are employing psychological warfare. In the middle, they are jockeying for position to squeeze the most out of the other.

At the moment it’s a very tense environment, a very polarized political landscape as Egypt waits tensely for either the military to decide what action it will take or for a political process to materialize.