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| Muslim Brotherhood's Jihadist foot-soldiers. |
The Muslim Brotherhood (known in Arabic
as al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen) is Egypt's oldest and largest Islamist organization.
As the most organized opposition group following the ouster of former President
Hosni Mubarak in 2011, the Brotherhood became the country's dominant political
force, winning a near majority of seats in the post-revolution parliament, and
its candidate, Mohammed Morsi, winning the presidency.
Some Egyptians are concerned over the
group's aim to establish a state ruled by sharia, or Islamic law, and ambiguity
over its respect for human rights. Such concerns intensified after Morsi
announced new sweeping powers for the presidency in late 2012 and a draft of
the proposed constitution was published. The domestic political challenges also
provide a difficult road for U.S.-Egypt relations, especially with regards to
foreign aid.
A History of Violence
Founded in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna, the
Muslim Brotherhood is widely considered the world's most influential Islamist
organization, with numerous branches and affiliates. It is "the mother of
all Islamist movements," says Shadi Hamid, a Middle East expert at the
Brookings Institution's Doha Center.
The Brotherhood's original mission was
to Islamize society through the promotion of Islamic law, values, and morals.
An Islamic revivalist movement from its early days, it has combined religion,
political activism, and social welfare in its work.
It adopted slogans such as "Islam is the solution" and
"Jihad is our way."
It played a role in the fight against British
colonial rule and was banned for a short time in 1948 for orchestrating
bombings inside Egypt and allegedly assassinating Prime Minister Mahmoud
al-Nuqrashi.
It then experienced a short spell of good relations with the government that came to power through a military coup, which ended British rule in 1952. But following a failed attempt to assassinate President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954, the group was banned again.
At that time, Sayyid Qutb, a prominent member of the Brotherhood, laid
down the ideological grounds for the use of jihad, or armed struggle, against
the regime in Egypt and beyond.
Qutb's writings, in particular his 1964 work Milestones, has provided
the intellectual and theological underpinnings for the founders of numerous
radical and militant Islamist groups, including al-Qaeda. Extremist leaders
often channel Qutb to argue that governments not ruled by sharia are apostate,
and therefore legitimate targets of jihad.
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| Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan Al-Banna. |
The Brotherhood has spawned branches
across the globe. These organizations bear the Brotherhood name, but their
connections to the founding group vary. In addition, some of the world's most
dangerous terrorists were once Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members, including
Osama bin Laden's top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
But Ed Husain, a senior fellow at CFR,
says it is wrong to make the Muslim Brotherhood "responsible for the
actions of all of its intellectual offspring." Since 9/11, prominent
members of the Brotherhood have renounced violence publicly and tried to
distance themselves from al-Qaeda's violent practices.
The Brotherhood's foray into electoral
politics has also widened the schism between it and groups like al-Qaeda.
Zawahiri had been openly critical of the Brotherhood's participation in the
2005 parliamentary elections.
But like other mass social movements,
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is hardly a monolith; it comprises hardliners,
reformers, and centrists, says terrorism expert Lydia Khalil. And some hardline
leaders have voiced support for al-Qaeda or use of violent jihad.
For instance, as recently as 2006,
Khalil points out, a member of the Brotherhood elected to parliament, Ragib
Hilal Hamida, voiced support for terrorism in the face of Western occupation.
Toward Pragmatic Politics
The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has
more than 300,000 members and runs numerous institutions, including hospitals,
schools, banks, businesses, foundations, day care centers, thrift shops, social
clubs, and facilities for the disabled.
Since the 1970s, the group has not
engaged in violent activity, even though it was officially banned by the
Mubarak regime. In the last three decades, the Brotherhood increased its
advancement into the political mainstream through alliances with other
opposition parties and through members running for parliament as independents.
Some analysts say the group has evolved
to become more moderate and embrace democratic and liberal principles such as
transparency and accountability. Analysts Samer Shehata and Joshua Stacher say
in a 2006 Middle East Report that the group "settled on a strategy of
political participation."
Brotherhood-affiliated candidates first
participated in local and parliamentary elections as independents in 1984, and
in 2005, its candidates won eighty-eight seats, or 20 percent of the legislature.
Political Challenges Since the Revolution
Following the 2011 political shakeup in
Egypt, the Brotherhood emerged as a dominant political force, surpassing most
other political parties in terms of organization and outreach. Its Freedom and
Justice Party won 47 percent of the seats in the lower house of parliament in
January 2012, and in June 2012, the Party's candidate took the presidency.
Yet these wins have been marred by a
number of power struggles with the judiciary and the military. In June 2012,
the country's Supreme Constitutional Court dissolved parliament, saying the
rules, under which a third of the parliament candidates contested, were
unconstitutional, making the entire body's makeup invalid.
The court also revoked a law that would
have barred former regime officials from holding office, which allowed
Mubarak's former prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, to remain in a presidential
runoff against the Brotherhood's candidate Mohammed Morsi.
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| So-called Arab-Spring Uprising at Cairo's Tahrir Square. |
By late November 2012, as the court was
poised to rule on whether the upper house of parliament was valid, Morsi
announced an emergency decree to exempt his decisions from judicial oversight,
setting off widespread protests.
At the center of this struggle has been
the effort to rewrite the country's constitution. Created before the lower
house was disbanded, the Constituent Assembly is largely composed of members of
the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and the Salafist al-Nour Party.
Morsi said his decreed powers were
needed to protect the assembly from being disbanded by the court. But critics
say the draft constitution would accord sweeping power to the president as well
as weaken human rights, freedom of worship, and protections for women.
The assembly approved the draft on
November 29 (AP), despite significant opposition. The next step is a
countrywide referendum. The court was expected to rule by early December 2012
on whether the assembly is valid, but shelved the matter after receiving what
it said was "psychological pressure" (EuroNews).
An Islamic State?
Following the 2011 revolution, the
specter of the 1979 Iranian revolution loomed large for many in the West who
have long feared an Islamist regime in Egypt.
CFR's Steven Cook notes how Mubarak has
used the organization as his bogeyman for three decades to "stoke the
fears of successive American administrations and, in turn, secure Washington's
generous diplomatic, political, and financial support." Israeli leaders
too, feared a replay of 1979.
Establishing an Islamic state based on sharia is at the center of the
Muslim Brotherhood's ideology, both in Egypt and among the group's many
offshoots abroad.
But the Brotherhood in Egypt has often
said it is committed to gradual and peaceful Islamization and only with the
consensus of Egypt's citizens. In recent times, some leaders have dismissed the
idea of an Islamic state and expressed commitment to work with other secular
and liberal parties.
However, human rights advocates and
secular political opponents have raised concerns about the recently drafted
constitution, which some argue is an attempt at the creation of a religious
state.
"If this constitution passes, it
will be the first Egyptian constitution that adopts a specific religious
doctrine for the state," writes Ragab Saad of the Cairo Institute for
Human Rights Studies, adding that some provisions could allow for
"instituting authoritarianism in the name of religion."
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| Former President Hosni Mubarak. |
At the same time, Salafis have
criticized and protested against the draft for not immediately imposing sharia
law. "The tensions between the Salafis and the Brotherhood have important
implications for the referendum on the draft constitution and the parliamentary
elections that will follow," writes Mara Revkin for Foreign Policy. Revkin
adds, "It will take more than the Brotherhood's core constituency to pass
the new draft constitution. Salafis and liberals will need to vote in
significant numbers."
Law professor Sahar Aziz of the Texas
Wesleyan University School of Law says that despite the flawed process, the
drafting of the constitution has been revolutionary for Egypt, and the
Brotherhood is being forced to moderate.
The current head of the Brotherhood,
Mahmoud Hussein, told Turkey's Today's Zaman in September 2012 that the
organization was not seeking a secular state like Turkey or a religious state
like Iran. "We want a state like Egypt," said Hussein.
Implications for the United States
Since the Brotherhood's electoral wins,
considerable discussion has been given to how to manage U.S. policy toward a
Brotherhood-led government. Egypt remains an important strategic ally in the
region on issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, as it showed
after Morsi helped broker a cease-fire for the November 2012 Gaza conflict.
TIME's Tony Karon says this could make the Brotherhood a possible "peace
player" in the future.
Middle East expert Robert Malley told
CFR in an interview that the Brotherhood's interests are "very much to
maintain a working relationship with the United States, to show the United
States that it can be a reliable partner when it comes to America's strategic
interests, while at the same time ensuring that they can consolidate their
power at home without undue interference from the outside world."
Yet other observers say Morsi's recent
domestic actions, which were criticized by the U.S. State Department, have
presented the Obama administration with a difficult but familiar dilemma of how
much to separate Egypt's domestic politics from its regional diplomatic role.
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| Egypt president Mohamed Morsi. |
Foreign aid to Egypt has become a
contentious issue, especially following an attack on the U.S. embassy in Cairo on
September 11, 2012. Some Republican leaders in the U.S. House have threatened
to block $450 million in aid, the first installment of $1 billion pledged by
the Obama administration to prevent a fiscal crisis.
Lawrence Haas, a senior fellow for the
American Foreign Policy Council, says the United States should make clear that
foreign aid to Egypt is not free, and that it seeks "a government that
will promote the promise of Tahrir Square, one that allows for a strong civil
society, opposition parties, independent media, and free elections that let
Muslim Brotherhood-dominated parties compete for power—but does not guarantee
their victory."
A November 2012 paper from the
Washington Institute recommends "engagement without illusions."
Authors Vin Weber and Gregory B. Craig argue that Obama should "certify to
Congress that Egypt must fulfil two well-defined sets of commitments—on
regional peace and on bilateral strategic cooperation—as a condition of
continued U.S. aid and political backing for international loans."