At five in the afternoon, Cairo time (28).. America and the Muslim Brotherhood (1)
Wednesday 14/January/2026 - 05:40 PM
Up to the moment this study is being written, in an effort to understand what has happened and what is happening in the course of the relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood and the United States.
On Wednesday, January 14, 2026, Washington did not classify the “Muslim Brotherhood” as an international organization or as a branch operating inside the United States as a terrorist organization. Instead, it classified specific branches linked to the group in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon only within the framework of the U.S. counterterrorism system. This raises many questions about the decision, its timing, and its objectives, despite our welcoming it as a step in the right direction that we have long called for.
The designation process included different classifications for each branch separately. The Egyptian and Jordanian branches were listed as Designated Terrorist Organizations through the U.S. Treasury Department (SDGT).
Meanwhile, the Lebanese branch—known as “al-Jama‘a al-Islamiyya”—was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the State Department (FTO), in addition to being listed as a Designated Terrorist Organization through the U.S. Treasury Department (SDGT).
The difference between the two classifications is significant. The first concerns financial sanctions and monitoring financial flows to and from the organization, while the second adds to the financial blockade the designation of individuals and the monitoring of travel and immigration operations.
Beyond these classifications, this study seeks to take a close look at what has happened and what will happen in the context of the relationship between the two parties—the Muslim Brotherhood and America—so that we, as countries concerned with this relationship, may find our footing in the coming phase.
From Republicans to Democrats
After President George W. Bush came to power by a narrow margin over his rival Al Gore, his administration adopted the approach of a faction within the U.S. administration that elevated the value of dialogue with another wing of Islamists, whom they mistakenly labeled the “moderate wing.” The aim was to use them as a buffer against remnants of angry youth seeking to join organizations that rely on armed violence.
Based on this approach, the U.S. administration moved the dialogue with these Islamists from the realm of secrecy—in which it had operated throughout the years following the September 2001 bombings—into the realm of public visibility, in order to grant it the necessary legitimacy to complete what proponents of this approach called “the grand bargain.”
In 2004, many implicit and explicit messages poured into the region from all American officials, reflecting this U.S. strategic orientation, which appeared puzzling to many parties—especially Arab ruling systems known for their traditional friendship with the United States, foremost among them the Egyptian and Saudi regimes.
From Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the “theorist” Richard Haass, director of the Policy Planning Staff at the same department, everyone spent 2004, through a series of successive statements, emphasizing that the United States did not fear the arrival of Islamist currents to power to replace what they called repressive Arab regimes that “cause terrorism to erupt by stifling voices,” provided that these currents came to power through democratic means and adopted democracy as a method of governance.
This faction within the U.S. administration, in its struggle with other factions that supported the ruling regimes, relied on presenting a number of variables they believed supported their choice of immediately initiating dialogue with moderate Islamists, namely:
The failure of Arab regimes to rein in political Islam in the coming decade, unlike what occurred in the 1990s. If these regimes remain authoritarian, they will suffer pressure to move toward democracy; if they become nascent and weak democracies, they will suffer from a lack of the capacities necessary to develop and coexist amid new challenges.
Political Islam in the West will remain an available option for Muslim immigrants who—despite being drawn to Western prosperity, affluence, and job opportunities—still feel alienation and loneliness amid the dominance of Western culture that contradicts their Islamic culture. Hence, the greatest fears stem from the ability of political Islam to mobilize frustrated ethnic and national groups and activate them to serve its objectives. Accordingly, it cannot be ruled out that political Islamists may create a transnational authority that transcends all national borders.
The main factors that produced and gave rise to international terrorism will not, over the coming decade, show any signs or indications of ending or even nearing an end. Modern global communication networks have made it easier for Islamists to revive their identity and spread their radical ideas, not only throughout the Middle East but also extending to Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and Western Europe—regions where religious identity, until recently, did not enjoy clear strength. This Islamic revival—note the West’s and the U.S. administration’s use of the same term that the Muslim Brotherhood used at that time to express the strength of their project—was accompanied by broad solidarity and genuine cohesion among Muslims who found, and still find, themselves in fierce wars characterized by national struggle or the pursuit of self-determination, such as the Muslims of Palestine, Chechnya, Iraq, Kashmir, and southern Thailand. This revival also found solidarity among Muslims living under the weight of their governments’ despotism, corruption, and ineffectiveness.
The surpassing of al-Qaeda by other armed Islamist groups by the coming decade, with the possibility that major Islamist movements—ideologically and practically close to al-Qaeda—might merge with local splinter movements (which indeed appeared through ISIS and its counterparts, as if the Americans were at that time charting the path for those organizations), posing a grave threat to global security.
The “moderate Islamists,” especially the founders and cadres of those popular organizations in the Arab region, are the ones capable of playing the role of a buffer that absorbs and prevents the flow of young, disgruntled Islamist elements toward terrorist organizations or toward the next generation of al-Qaeda expected to emerge in the coming decade.
The demands of these organizations are limited and always focus on their right to participate in power in their countries, given their popular weight that qualifies them for this. Hence, the United States can strike a grand bargain with them that achieves the objectives of all parties at once.
To Whom Were the Messages Addressed?
I believe that the messages of the U.S. administration at that time were directed primarily at Arab governments rather than at Islamists. It can also be said that they were dual messages addressed to both parties simultaneously. The Americans would lose nothing by throwing a stone into the stagnant pond of politics in the Arab region—especially in countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia—by betting on two horses instead of one, frightening each with the other, and placing both in a constant state of panting to gain American credibility.
These messages—or rather, the American game—continued until the Arab Spring arrived, carried on this new American vision. Through this strategy, the region was pushed into sweeping chaos, from which Egypt was saved only by the cohesion of the people and their living national forces together with the military institution, the backbone of the Egyptian state throughout its history. This wrote a new lifespan for the region through a divine intervention that the eye cannot miss, and the American vision suffered a stroke that ended it.
But the question is this: Did the relationship between the Islamist current—at its heart the Muslim Brotherhood—and Washington begin after the famous September 2001 bombings, or does the history of that relationship between the two sides require a closer look that presents us with clear conclusions to understand this relationship and know its trajectories in both the near and distant future?
This is what we will attempt to answer through this study.
Paris: five o’clock in the evening, Cairo time.
