As US moves against the Muslim Brotherhood, Middle East pays close attention

 In a critical move for the Middle East, the White House recently issued an executive order that appears to be part of a widely expected move against the Muslim Brotherhood, which designates certain MB chapters as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists.

Sebastian Gorka, the deputy assistant to the president and senior director of the Counter Terrorism National Security Council, posted on X/Twitter that “history has been made. Just moments ago, in the presence of my [National Security Council] colleague who helped author the executive order, President Donald Trump designated multiple chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood, including the Egyptian branch,  which is the progenitor of all modern jihadists, al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Hamas, included.”

This is an important move, and many are watching how it will play out with US policy and among US friends and allies in the Middle East and around the world.

Gorka called this a “tectonic act.” He and others see it as an important move. MB has long played an important role in the Middle East and around the world among many Muslims. As the White House notes, it was “founded in Egypt in 1928, has developed into a transnational network with chapters across the Middle East and beyond.”

It became a wellspring for many movements, namely Hamas and Turkey’s ruling party, the AKP. It also gave birth to many other political movements, including branches in Tunisia and also in the Kurdistan region. The Brotherhood is not a monolith.

The White House noted that “relevant here, its chapters in Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt engage in or facilitate and support violence and destabilization campaigns that harm their own regions, United States citizens, and United States interests. For example, in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, attack in Israel, the military wing of the Lebanese chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood joined Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian factions to launch multiple rocket attacks against both civilian and military targets within Israel.”

It is also relevant to note that it has inspired groups that have not engaged in terrorism, including political groups among Arab Israelis and, as noted above, among Kurds.

How the new US policy will affect various countries

The challenge for the US is to try to figure out how its new policy will affect various countries. This will also affect how these countries may proceed. The White House noted that “a senior leader of the Egyptian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood, on October 7, 2023, called for violent attacks against United States partners and interests, and Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood leaders have long provided material support to the militant wing of Hamas. Such activities threaten the security of American civilians in the Levant and other parts of the Middle East, as well as the safety and stability of our regional partners.”

The order goes on to note that “it is the policy of the United States to cooperate with its regional partners to eliminate the capabilities and operations of Muslim Brotherhood chapters designated as foreign terrorist organizations pursuant to Section 3 of this order, deprive those chapters of resources, and thereby end any threat such chapters pose to United States nationals or the national security of the United States.”

It says that within 30 days, the secretary of state and the secretary of the treasury shall “submit a joint report to the president, through the assistant to the president for national security affairs, concerning the designation of any Muslim Brotherhood chapters or other subdivisions, including those in Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt, as foreign terrorist organizations consistent with 8 U.S.C. 1189, and specially designated global terrorists consistent with 50 U.S.C. 1702 and Executive Order 13224.”

The UAE has long led the charge against the MB in the region. It’s noteworthy that Qatar and Turkey, which have generally appeared closer to the Brotherhood, have also been willing to compromise.

For instance, Ankara appeared to give up supporting the MB’s struggle in Egypt to reconcile with Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s government in Cairo. A decade ago, Ankara had backed the MB government of Mohammed Morsi in Cairo, before he was pushed out of power in 2013 by the Egyptian army and protesters.

The UAE publication Al-Ain noted that various US senators and representatives have expressed support for Trump’s move. It said, “Representative Jared Moskowitz is one of the most prominent Democratic voices supporting this approach, as he called in a letter to the White House last June for a ‘comprehensive investigation’ that could pave the way for classifying the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization.” The governor of Texas had already moved against MB.

A second report in Al-Ain noted that MB has suffered severe blows around the world in recent years, saying, the MB designation “was not an unprecedented step, but rather the culmination of efforts undertaken by several countries from Africa to Europe.”

The report noted that 11 countries have already prohibited the group. These include a crackdown in Syria in the 1980s and a 2003 order in Russia. The report also says Kazakhstan designated MB as a terrorist organization in 2006. Egypt followed suit in 2013; and the UAE, along with Saudi Arabia, made the move in 2014. Libya did the same, although this appears to apply only to the part of eastern Libya that is near the UAE.

More recently, Comoros and Paraguay moved against MB in 2023, and Jordan banned the group’s activities this year. Kenyan “security authorities listed the Muslim Brotherhood and its splinter group Hizb ut-Tahrir as terrorist entities under the Anti-Terrorism Act, in a preemptive strike against terrorism in the region,” Al-Ain reported.

Other countries may be moving in the same direction. Al-Ain said that Austria, Germany, Mauritania, Bahrain, Oman, France, Tunisia, and Canada have made various moves that could eventually lead to a crackdown on the Brotherhood.

For the UAE and its friends, this is a global struggle. They want the MB ejected from power and for its path to power to be blocked in places like Tunisia. The Brotherhood has sought to reinvent itself in many places. For instance, in Tunisia, it is linked to the political party Ennahda. That group had performed well after Tunisia moved toward democracy as part of the Arab Spring in 2011. However, it has now been pushed out of power.

The MB often works behind the scenes to back protests and change its name to participate in politics. It seeks to brand its view of political Islam as being more rooted in the ordinary people and less corrupt than other political figures. Historically, in the Middle East, it worked against the Arab nationalist governments, such as working against Egypt’s Nasser or the Assad regime in Syria. In the Palestinian context, it founded Hamas to oppose Fatah.

In Israel, MB has worked through various branches of local Arab politics. This has included what are known as the Northern and Southern Islamic movements. The Northern Branch was outlawed in 2015. There are now questions about whether the US decision might encourage Israel to try to ban several Arab political parties and groups, alleging that they are linked to the MB.

For instance, Mansour Abbas, leader of the Ra’am Party, was quoted by Ynet as criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for earlier comments in which he said he would work “to complete the process of banning the Muslim Brotherhood.” Abbas and Ra’am have been moderates in Israel and worked toward coexistence.