Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has blind-sided the West to appear as a pluralistic movement. And the US National Security Council has not ruled out "engagement with the Muslim Brotherhood as part of an orderly process".
Yet the Brotherhood is locked in endless debate between those who aspire to instant jihad - citing Mohammed's small armies defeating much larger ones as in the battles of Badr and Uhud - and others who advocate a multi-generational process of da'wah (persuasion via example and preaching), as well as deception. Some analysts cite Islam's past traditions to prove this point. Strategies for Shiites can involve the use of concepts such as taqiyyah, a process that includes lying to enemies to conceal one's true intentions.
Alternative concealment strategies include collaboration with the enemy or hudna, a ceasefire that provides organisations like Hamas with time to replenish their weapons' stocks. The ultimate objective is the attainment of power.
Da'wah and taqiyyah were strategies employed by the Iranian revolutionary Ayatollah Khomeini in the late 1970s in his dealings with the United States. Khomeini shrewdly echoed what the international community wanted to hear and spoke of gender equality and the violation of human rights by the Shah.
History will recall how Khomeini later proceeded to brutally purge all those who had previously constituted his coalition, in order to advance his Islamist agenda. Thus, Khomeini laid down the blueprint that has been followed by Islamist groups across the Middle East: the more distant from power, the more moderate and democratic their rhetoric. The greater their proximity, the more openly anti-Western and undemocratic their agenda becomes.
Khomeini shrewdly echoed what the world wanted to hear
The Muslim Brotherhood has advanced politically through alliances with opposition parties and by its members running as independents. During the recent protests, for example, it set up Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammed El Baradei as the head of the opposition movement, referring to him as the "donkey of the revolution", implying that he could be cast aside after having been ridden.
It is no surprise that, two years after the party achieved greater proximity to power by winning 20 per cent of assembly seats in the 2005 parliamentary elections, it sought to draft a political agenda calling for a ban on women and non-Muslims becoming heads of state, and the creation of a religious council to vet government decisions, similar to the Council of Guardians in Iran.
The Egyptian public appears susceptible to elements of Islamist ideology, which provides an ideal social context for the Muslim Brotherhood to further its goals – at the expense of the West.
According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, 59 per cent of those polled who said there was a struggle between modernisers and fundamentalists also said that they were in favour of Islamists; 20 per cent said they held a favourable view of Al-Qaeda; 30 and 49 per cent held favourable views of Hizbollah and Hamas respectively (the latter having links to the Muslim Brotherhood); 89 per cent want adulterers punished by stoning; 77 per cent want robbers to be whipped and have their hands amputated; and 84 per cent favour the death penalty for any Muslim who changes his (or her) religion.
The combination of da'wah and taqiyyah creates openings for an Islamist civil societal space as a platform for future resistance. More broadly, this is termed by US Colonel Thomas Hammes as "fourth-general warfare" (4GW), which places less emphasis on battlefield victory than on creating political, social and economic networks geared (over years and decades) towards undermining the political will of the enemy to engage in combat.
Indeed, Hassan Al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, sought to take over society through a grassroots association that would provide social services. The Muslim Brotherhood has tactically renounced violence and placed itself at odds with Al-Qaeda. Yet it has endorsed acts of terrorism against US troops in Iraq and Israel. Its rejection of violence may therefore just be a ploy.
Fostering a liberal, civic culture in the Middle East can undermine the support of Islamists and de-fang their subversive strategies. The Muslim Brotherhood's participation in government would not have a moderating effect as it would shed its false front when it attained real power. To prevent this from occurring in Egypt, it is essential for a constitution and electoral laws to be written during an extensive transition period to prevent any party from achieving a monopoly on power. Basic freedoms should be enshrined in this constitution, such as the freedom of speech, assembly, political organisation and practice of religion.
In Jordan and Tunisia, creating an independent judiciary and promoting broader civil society serve to undermine Islamists. Ultimately, painting radicals as moderates may serve to present policy in manageable frameworks. But this is disingenuous. The dangerous alternative is to admit to both a lack of influence on events that have taken place, and wasted time on the part of Western governments in cultivating indigenous liberal democratic forces in the Middle East.
Barak M. Seener is the Middle East research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute
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