The U.S. Comes to Terms with Muslim Brotherhood

The United States has decided to resume contact with the Muslim Brotherhood, to change its political rhetoric from idle to active — toward discussion and joint relations with the Islamic world — and to enter directly into constructive dialogue.

But away from all of this, the fact that the United States and the Muslim Brotherhood are making such decisions is considered a positive step from which both sides will reap much political gain.

For the Brotherhood, for example, the U.S. decision to resume contact — and this time openly — is an explicit acknowledgment by Americans that the Muslim Brotherhood is now the biggest power in the Egyptian political scene. The move has served as election propaganda for the Brotherhood and its political party, at this particular time when legislative elections draw near.

Moreover, you could say that the revolution didn’t really change anything regarding the speculation that the U.S. has direct influence on the choice of Egypt’s next president. There are certainly many internal and external signs that support this notion. Given that Americans believe that none of the potential presidential candidates are worthwhile, except, in their view, Mohamed ElBaradei (about whom they have reservations, of course), they therefore had to find an alternative. Having failed to find one in any of the legal parties, they headed straight to the Muslim Brotherhood.

As for the American administration, its well-known pragmatic policies have caused it to accept the Islamist trend, though it had long supported the former regime’s suppression of the movement and wanted it removed from the political scene.

As a matter of fact, the reestablishment of communications with the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo masks external dimensions too. After the fall of deposed President Hosni Mubarak — who had been the most important U.S. ally in the region after Israe l— and after Fatah and Hamas reconciled, the U.S. had no cards up its sleeve to apply pressure on Hamas. The dismissed government in Gaza found itself man to man with Israel with no impediments from inside or outside. As a result, the U.S. rushed to play a new card, the Muslim Brotherhood, so that it could use it to pressure Hamas into retreating from certain decisions at times and adopting others.

Looking at the stated position of both sides, it’s clear that the Muslim Brothers (despite our differences with them) are not anti-American. To the contrary, they will be keen in the coming days to deliver a true image of their stated platform, which the regime has long hidden behind a “scarecrow” that has blurred successive U.S. administrations’ view of the group.

However, as soon as the communication resumed between the two sides, outcries emerged from some quarters, including from some who usually stir murky waters. They announced that the Muslim Brotherhood has begun to ally itself with a foreign power and that they will allow the U.S. to intervene once again in domestic Egyptian issues. But we do not think so, since there are no indications of a conspiracy so far. It’s well known that the Muslim Brotherhood does not seek to strengthen its position in the political spectrum of competition through foreign powers.

Leaving all this aside, the important thing now is to attempt to assess the situation with some scrutiny and to clarify the features of this relationship, which has already begun at the communication level. Will this communication develop a stage further and take shape in the form of diplomatic relations in the future? Or is it all just fanfare or what various news agencies have been reporting — nothing more than both sides merely getting to know one another? My aunt and your aunt — the aunts parted ways.*

*Translator’s note: This Egyptian idiomatic expression refers to a fleeting relationship of mutual benefit in which both parties subsequently part ways.