The Muslim Brotherhood is arguably the most influential Islamist organization in history. Its reach spans the globe and includes elements of both violent and civilizational jihad. All of their efforts are in service of Islamist supremacy, as the words of founder Hassan Al Banna make clear: “It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.”
The Muslim Brotherhood is “the world’s incubator of modern Islamic terrorism” and “the world’s most dangerous militant cult.”
There are many books that explore the origin, beliefs, and actions of the Muslim Brotherhood and show its malevolence. In The Secret Apparatus: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Industry of Death, Cynthia Farahat, a native of Alexandria, Egypt, argued that the Muslim Brotherhood is “the world’s incubator of modern Islamic terrorism” and “the world’s most dangerous militant cult.” While the Brotherhood officially renounced violence in the 1970s, its actions and support for Hamas, Al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups render those statements meaningless.
The Muslim Brotherhood has spawned numerous regional offshoots, some legal and others not, and also gave birth to more extreme groups, up to and including Al Qaeda. While the State Department has designated Muslim Brotherhood offshoots, including Hamas and Liwa al-Thawra, to be Foreign Terrorist Organizations, successive U.S. administrations have refused to designate the entirety of the group and some secretaries, like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, even sought to cultivate the group. Former State Department Middle East specialist Michele Dunne explained the logic in a 2019 essay: “By joining countries (for example, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the U.A.E.) that designate groups as terrorist for political reasons, the United States would tarnish the international legitimacy of its other designations and erode the credibility of its counterterrorism efforts.”
Former State Department advisor William McCants and legal blogger Benjamin Wittes, at the time both Brookings Institution scholars, opposed designation both on technical grounds, arguing it would be procedurally illegal, and also on the Muslim Brotherhood’s diffuse, amorphous structure. “The Brotherhood is not in a meaningful sense a single organization at all; elements of it can be designated and have been designated, and other elements certainly cannot be. As a whole, it is simply too diffuse and diverse to characterize,” they argued. But, by that logic, Al Qaeda would not be a terrorist group. Neither McCants nor Wittes disclosed that their home institution had received tens of millions of dollars from Qatar, a Muslim Brotherhood-supporting country.
When the ideology promotes terror, however, failure to act reflects inconsistency, if not a blind spot. Like the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps spawned numerous terrorist offshoots—Hezbollah, Ansar Allah (the Houthis), Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Initially, diplomats opposed designating the Revolutionary Guards, arguing that only a portion of the group—the Qods Force, for example—engaged in terror. The reality, however, is that those groups not directly engaged in military action support it, either through recruitment, funding, or publicizing. The same dynamics are at play with Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Not only has the U.S. government designated each affiliate, but it has also designated the entirety of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hezbollah, and Hamas, effectively acknowledging that the tentacles of the octopus do not operate independently.
Yet, when it comes to the Muslim Brotherhood, too many terror-cheering, if not supporting, affiliates have historically received a free pass in both the United States and Europe. This is short-sighted. If non-terrorist groups associated with the Brotherhood do not want to be smeared with that brush, they can disassociate.
The Muslim Brotherhood represents a danger to the civilized world and designating it a Foreign Terrorist Organization will help curb its influence.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) now seeks to change U.S. inaction on the Brotherhood. Cruz reportedly will introduce a bill soon to force designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Such action will save U.S. lives and also help counter the influence of those lobbying on behalf of Qatar and Turkey, whose president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is both a product of the Muslim Brotherhood and one of its chief supporters.
The Muslim Brotherhood represents a danger to the civilized world and designating it a Foreign Terrorist Organization will help curb its influence. An indication that this is a correct move can be seen in the actions of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Jordan. These countries all know the Brotherhood well; each has designated the Brotherhood as a terror group. While Dunne argued that designating the Brotherhood as terrorists could undermine U.S. diplomacy in the Arab world, the opposite is actually true. By demonstrating to U.S. allies that Washington understands their security needs and concerns, designation can enhance diplomatic relations and partnerships.
