The Trump administration is currently considering adding the Muslim Brotherhood—an Islamist, anti-Semitic, and anti-Christian group dedicated to creating a “global Islamic state”—to the State Department’s official list of terrorist organizations. Although the Brotherhood’s motto concludes with the words “jihad is our way; death for the sake of Allah is our highest aspiration,” and although it has a history of terrorist sympathies, Eric Trager argues that the case for giving it the terrorist designation is not clear-cut:
First, the Muslim Brotherhood isn’t a single organization but an international movement composed of dozens of national Brotherhood organizations; . . . at times, Brotherhood organizations have worked at cross-purposes. . . . The second hurdle for designating the Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization relates to the narrow question of whether the Brotherhood’s activities meet the legal standard of engaging in “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.” To be sure, Hamas, [the Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch, which is already on the State Department list], meets this standard, because it targets civilians for murder. But in most other cases, Brotherhood organizations are quite careful to avoid crossing the line between expressing their ideological affinity for terrorist attacks—which they do quite prolifically—and directing their members to commit actual terrorist attacks. . . .
Moreover, given the historic influence of the Egyptian Brotherhood on the broader movement, the failure of [its leader, ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi, to maintain power] and the subsequent collapse of the Egyptian Brotherhood has discredited the international movement considerably, and many Brotherhood chapters are significantly weaker than they were prior to the 2011 “Arab Spring” uprisings. In this sense, most Brotherhood organizations are exactly where the Trump administration should want them: marginalized and more capable of spewing hatred than acting on it. And there is plenty that the administration could do to keep the Brotherhood cornered, such as enhancing its cooperation with Middle Eastern partners that oppose the Brotherhood and speaking publicly about the Brotherhood’s hateful and violent ideology.
Alternatively, if the Trump administration tries and fails to designate the Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization, it could backfire: Brotherhood organizations would likely hail this as a victory and use a failed designation as evidence to claim—falsely—that they are nonviolent. And given the polarized political climate in Washington, a failed Brotherhood designation might ultimately afford the Brotherhood a more generous hearing in certain political and policy circles.
Read more on Cipher Brief: https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/middle-east/us-should-be-wary-about-overplaying-its-hand-1089