Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has approved legislation reimposing martial law by calling on the armed forces to keep order and authorizing soldiers to arrest civilians The New York Times reports

Mr. Morsi has not yet issued the order. But even if merely a threat, the preparation of the measure suggested an escalation in the political battle between Egypt’s new Islamist leaders and their secular opponents over an Islamist-backed draft constitution. The standoff has already threatened to derail the culmination of Egypt’s promised transition to a constitutional democracy nearly two years after the revolt against the former leader Hosni Mubarak.

A short time after the news of presidential marital law a military spokesman read a statement over state television stating its national responsibility for maintaining the supreme interests of the nation and securing and protecting the vital targets, public institutions, and the interests of the innocent citizens.

But a need to rely on the military to secure a referendum to approve the new charter could undermine Mr. Morsi’s efforts to present the documents as an expression of national consensus that might resolve the crisis.

Even the possibility presents an extraordinary role reversal: an elected president who spent decades opposing Mr. Mubarak’s use of martial law to detain Islamists is poised to resort to similar tactics to control unrest and violence from secular groups. The move would also reflect an equally extraordinary breakdown in Egyptian civic life that in the last two weeks has destroyed most of the remaining trust between the rival Islamist and secular factions.

At the time, Mr. Morsi said he needed such unchecked power to protect against the threat that Mubarak-appointed judges might dissolve the constitutional assembly. He also tried to give the assembly a two-month extension on its year-end deadline to forge consensus between the Islamist majority and the secular faction — something liberals have sought. But his claim to such power for even a limited period struck those suspicious of the Islamists as a return to autocracy, and his authoritarian decree triggered an immediate backlash.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters accusing Mr. Morsi and his Islamist allies of monopolizing power have poured into the streets. Demonstrators have attacked more than two dozen Brotherhood offices around the country, including its headquarters. And judges declared a national strike.

In response, Mr. Morsi’s Islamist allies in the assembly stayed up all night to rush out a draft constitution over the boycotts and objections of the secular minority and the Coptic Christian church.