At five in the afternoon, Cairo time (48).. Arab National Security (3)

 

Files Not Yet Closed …

Why the Islamists? And why the Muslim Brotherhood in particular?

 

In major moments of political transformation, slogans do not prevail; organizations do.

It is not the most sincere who rise, but the most prepared.

 

When waves of protest reached their peak, the question posed in Western decision-making rooms was not: Who is the most popular?

But rather: Who is most capable of controlling this moment?

 

Organization Before Ideology

 

In an environment charged with anger and open to every possibility, networked organizations become the safest bet.

 

In this context, the Muslim Brotherhood were not merely a religious group, but:

 

An international organization

 

A transnational, cross-border network

 

Possessing long experience in clandestine and semi-public work

 

Capable of adapting to changes without losing their structure

 

The wager was not on their discourse so much as on their organizational capacity and their readiness to reach understandings.

 

Contrary to the image promoted by Western media, Islamists—foremost among them the Brotherhood—were never outside Western calculations.

 

Historical experience says otherwise.

 

For decades, channels of communication had been open and never truly severed:

 

First with the British

 

Then later with the Americans

 

And at many moments, Islamists were viewed as a potential alternative to existing regimes

 

The reason is simple:

 

They possess high political pragmatism

 

A readiness to make concessions under religious banners

 

And an ability to align with the rules of the international game whenever interests require

 

Hostility toward Israel, in this context, was not a real obstacle,

but rather a negotiable card that could be managed.

 

“Moderate Islamists”: A Functional Invention

 

In the first decade of the millennium, the term “moderate Islamists” emerged forcefully in Western reports.

 

It was not a precise scientific description,

but a functional classification.

 

The acceptable Islamist is one who:

 

Accepts the rules of the game

 

Respects international agreements

 

Does not place the conflict with Israel at the forefront of his project

 

Can be contained or pressured when necessary

 

The models of Turkey and Morocco were presented as evidence of success, while the profound differences between those contexts and Egypt were overlooked.

 

The Brotherhood and the Egyptian Moment

 

In Egypt, the Brotherhood were more than just a political faction.

 

They were:

 

The most disciplined organization

 

The most widespread

 

And the fastest to fill the vacuum

 

While the street was consumed with protest,

and the elites were consumed with slogans,

the Brotherhood were reorganizing their ranks,

preparing to move from the margins to the center.

 

They did not create the revolution,

but they were the most prepared to seize it.

 

The Fatal Miscalculation

 

What decision-making centers that wagered on this option failed to grasp was that the Brotherhood—by the very nature of their organization—are not suited to being a temporary tool.

 

An organization built on:

 

Absolute obedience

 

Monopoly over truth

 

Exclusion of the different

 

cannot be a partner in a modern, pluralistic state.

 

Here, the confrontation began early:

 

With state institutions

 

With society

 

And with the very idea of national identity

 

It was a clash that served no one’s interests,

but it revealed the limits of that bet.

 

From Bet to Crisis

 

When the Brotherhood reached power, managed chaos turned into exposed chaos.

 

It was no longer possible to:

 

Manage contradictions

 

Control the rhythm

 

Or preserve the fragile balance

 

The forces that had wagered on this option soon discovered that they had unleashed a force that could not easily be controlled, nor reversed without cost.

 

At this point, Egypt entered a new phase,

in which the problem was no longer the overthrow of the regime,

the Supreme Guide’s regime, but the rescue of the state.

 

January 25: The Egyptian Moment

 

The January 25 moment in Egypt was not a foreign invention, nor a pure conspiracy, as some later sought to simplify it.

At its core, it was a genuine expression of accumulated social and political anger built up over years.

 

The fatal error was not the anger itself,

but the vacuum that followed it,

and the way that anger was exploited—transformed from protest energy into a tool for struggle over the state.

 

Why?

Because anger is merely an objective condition that leads to protest and demands for change. Revolution, however, requires the growth of a rational, deeply rooted subjective condition that understands society’s needs and priorities, is organized and capable of leadership at decisive moments, and—most importantly—possesses the ability to build a modern state, not merely raise hollow slogans.

Unfortunately, the political forces that were prepared had goals and strategies that ran counter to all of this. They hijacked the revolution toward a direction that not everyone wanted—including the people themselves, across their diverse and wide social strata.

Here lay the point of rupture between the people and revolutionary action on the ground; a rupture that evolved into silent rejection, then open rejection, and finally a return to the streets on June 30, 2013, to correct the course.

 

Anger When It Lacks Leadership

 

Egyptians took to the streets driven by a widespread sense of blocked horizons:

 

Political deadlock

 

Economic imbalance

 

And erosion of trust between society and governing institutions

 

There was no unified program,

no central leadership,

no clear vision for the day after.

 

Here, any revolution becomes vulnerable to hijacking.

 

From the Street to the Platform

 

While the street expressed itself spontaneously,

organized forces were moving quietly.

 

Forces that:

 

Know when to advance

 

When to retreat

 

How to negotiate

 

And how to leap from chanting to the podium

 

Tahrir Square alone was not the arena. There were other arenas:

 

Negotiation rooms

 

Communication channels

 

Internal and external pressure centers

 

Thus began the gradual transformation:

from a broad protest movement,

to a narrow political battle over power.

 

Toppling the Regime… Then What?

 

When the head of the regime fell, the most dangerous question fell with it—unanswered:

Who governs? How? And with what vision of the state?

 

Slogans were no longer enough,

nor chants capable of running a state the size of Egypt.

 

The political vacuum expanded rapidly,

and with each passing day, the cost of waiting rose.

 

In that vacuum, the most organized advanced,

not the most representative.

 

The Soft Hijacking

 

The hijacking was not crude or confrontational at first.

 

It took place under the banners of:

 

Legitimacy

 

The ballot box

 

Respect for the popular will

 

But democracy, when reduced to an electoral moment without national consensus,

turns into a tool of exclusion rather than a means of construction.

Unfortunately, everyone participated in this act—Nasserists, liberals, and socialists alike. All had their eyes on a deal with the Brotherhood that would place them at the heart of the governing equation. In secret, however, the Brotherhood were preparing the trap for all.

 

“We Will Not Nominate Anyone for the Presidency”

 

Under this slogan, the Brotherhood deceived everyone. Many believed that by offering sacrifices they would become the closest to the dream position. Suddenly, the group nominated one of its leaders. Everyone collapsed, yet they had no alternative; they were already mired in the mud, with no escape but to continue.

 

Thus began a project of:

 

State monopolization

 

Brotherhoodization of institutions

 

Re-engineering political identity according to the logic of the group

 

The conflict was no longer merely political,

but existential.

 

The Collapse of Consensus

 

This attempt soon collided with a far more solid reality.

 

Egyptian society, by its composition and history, did not accept:

 

Reducing the state to a single group

 

Monopolizing the nation in the name of religion

 

Or turning the revolution into spoils

 

Signs of deep division began to appear:

 

In the street

 

In the media

 

In state institutions

 

With every step of exclusion,

the space for consensus narrowed.

 

The Moment of Truth

 

When matters reached the brink of explosion,

the struggle was no longer over who would rule,

but over whether the state would survive or collapse.

 

Here, the institution many had tried to sideline or break returned to the forefront:

 

The Egyptian Army.

 

Its intervention was no longer a political choice,

but an existential necessity.

 

Not in defense of a regime,

but to protect a state on the verge of sliding into scenarios the region had known before.

 

What Changed?

 

At that moment, the scene flipped:

 

The external bet ended

 

The illusion of total hijacking collapsed

 

And the path of restoring the state began

 

Yet the question that remains to this day is:

Why did Egypt succeed in escaping while other states collapsed?

 

The answer is not simple,

nor reducible to a single factor.

 

This is what we will discuss in the fourth and final part.

 

To be continued.