Outside View ... Like the veil a Muslim woman wears to hide her face, almost three decades of rule by President Hosni Mubarak kept hidden the true political aspirations of the Egyptian people under his veil of authority. That veil has now been lifted for all to see underneath. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but what we are seeing in Egypt is not pretty. 

Those who see the beauty of a democratic process evolving, giving rise to a greater respect for human rights, are chewing khat. 

One of the major players in post-Mubarak Egypt understands this, recognizing while a silver-tongued suitor for power has emerged, its real designs for Egypt’s future will only become apparent after it is too late. Accordingly, it seeks to interrupt the suitor before the Egyptian people consummate the marriage, discovering they have made a disastrous mistake.      

Several times in history, those who have started revolutions lost control of them. It happened in 1789 during the French Revolution and 190 years later in Iran.

In both cases, those yearning for greater freedoms launched revolutions that toppled, in France, a king and, in Iran, a shah. 

However, both were eventually hijacked, bringing to power dictatorial regimes that continued to abuse the rights of those whose actions gave rise to the revolution in the first place.

Egypt’s “Arab Spring” has been no different. And, the fact that Islamists parties benefitted enormously more from the country’s first free elections the revolution made possible than did the liberal democrats who started it comes as no surprise. 

The two main Islamists parties won 62% of the vote—the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) gaining 41% and Salafists 21%—as liberal democrats came in third. The MB was the only political group with an infrastructure in place to take advantage of the short interval between Mubarak’s fall and the elections. 

What is most intriguing about Egypt’s Arab Spring is that we now see two groups—neither one who led the revolutionary charge and one a non-party to the elections—jockeying for power, climbing over the bodies of the liberal democrats who died to get them there. 

By the time history books are written on Egypt’s Arab Spring, the role of the liberal democrats will have been reduced to no more than a footnote, responsible for starting but not finishing a revolution that triggered the transfer of power from Mubarak to the MB. 

While Egyptians voted overwhelming for MB representation, it is the other major player in the power struggle—the military charged with temporarily holding the reins of government until the elected legislature can write a constitution—that foresees a future for the Egyptian people who, in their euphoria to be free of Mubarak, fail to fully grasp the consequences awaiting them.

To understand those consequences, one must understand the MB’s origin. 

With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1928, the MB formed as a social and religious group in Egypt, opposed to the secular tendencies of Islamic nations. It sought the imposition of shariah law by all such nations, free of Western influences heralding human equality and democracy. Hassan al-Banna, the organization’s founder, was an ardent admirer of Adolf Hitler.

By 1939, the MB had recognized the need to take a political approach to spreading Islam. It also began a terrorist initiative against Egypt’s minority Coptic Christian community. Following World War II, the group was banned in Egypt after turning to further violence. The ban was lifted several times, only to be re-instated after continuing terrorist acts. 

These acts led to Al-Banna’s death at the hands of the Egyptian government in 1949, followed by that of Sayyid Qutb—a very influential MB member whose Islamist works would later influence Osama bin Laden—in 1954. Legalized again in 1964, the MB was so infuriated with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat for signing a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 it assassinated him two years later. 

During the MB’s history, it has been banned in other states as well, including Syria. 

In 1971 after Hafez al-Assad, the father of the current president of Syria, came to power, he angered the MB as he was an Alawite Muslim—considered by the group to be a non-Muslim. The MB initiated a series of terrorist strikes, prompting Assad into action against them. After the MB targeted Assad for assassination in 1980, membership in the organization was made a capital offense. In a campaign lasting 32 months, he nearly wiped them out. 

Also establishing a foothold in Jordan, a radical wing of the MB won over 25% of the seats in Parliament, gaining a majority with the 1993 elections. In 1994, they attempted to abrogate Jordan’s peace treaty with Israel. Russia claims the MB is an active participant in its confrontation with Chechnya. 

Today, the MB exists in 70 countries around the world. It has given rise to violent offshoots such as Hamas, founded in 1987 and which now controls the Gaza Strip. Hamas, throughout its violent history, has revealed itself to be an equal-opportunity killer, murdering Muslims as well as non-Muslims alike.

We are being led to believe the MB today has mellowed, surrendering a tradition of violence for one of moderation. However, its violent track record supports concerns a mask of moderation hides a much more sinister side. 

One need only listen to Dr. Muhammad Badi, selected in 2010 to be the MB’s “Supreme Guide,” to understand concerns about the organization really being an extremist wolf in a moderate sheep’s clothing. With the Arab Spring opening the door in the region for Islamists, he is confident a global caliphate will evolve to establish “mastership of the world.”

The MB says all the right things about foregoing violence to ingratiate itself to a naïve West. Our naiveté is underscored by our acceptance of the MB’s removal from its website, in February 2011 (as the Arab Spring hit Egypt), the English version of its bylaws—which made clear its intentions to achieve a world subject to Islamic law—while it retained on the site its Arabic version. 

While the website highlights articles in English suggesting a kinder, gentler side to shariah law—one accepting of democracy—no such articles appear in Arabic on the website. Our naiveté extends to our acceptance of what the MB tells us as we ignore, at our peril, the organization’s belief the Quran sanctions the practice of “taqiyya,” i.e., lying to non-Muslims to further Islam’s cause. As the Prophet Muhammad supposedly said, “War is deceit.” 

We are only fooling ourselves if we do not recognize the MB is at war with the West.

Once Mubarak fell, there was a brief flashback to the MB’s 1930’s violent motives toward Christians. On September 30, at the urging of religious leaders, thugs burned down a Coptic church. Subsequent peaceful demonstrations by the Christians led to a violent response by both MB antagonists and the army. 

Calls went out for Copts to pay “jizya” (tribute and submission) or suffer the consequences as stated in the Quran, “we will bring the sword to your necks!” And the MB will move to allow greater access to the Sinai—with the focus of exposing Israel to increased threats of rocket attacks.  

With the MB having been voted into the legislature’s driver’s seat, there has been criticism of the army for being slow to relinquish control. The army promises to relax its grip in June after a new constitution is written and president elected. Whether it does so remains to be seen. 

Among its concerns that could delay the transition of power is whether the army perceives a MB-controlled government is leading it into a war with Israel.

The army’s hesitation to yield control stems from its knowledge of the MB and how the MB might well decide to mimic what Iran has done to its regular army.

When Iran’s mullahs rode the revolution to power, they inherited the shah’s army, which they distrusted. Accordingly, the regular army’s influence was minimized as the Supreme Leader established the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to defend the regime against foreign and domestic threats. 

Since its founding, IRGC’s mandate has greatly expanded. Today, it answers directly to the Supreme Leader and wields enormous socio-economic-political-military control. Egypt’s military leaders know, once the MB is firmly entrenched, the army may well take a back seat to a MB’s version of the IRGC.

For this reason, Egypt’s army seeks to influence the writing of a new constitution. 

But this is contrary to the MB’s designs which seek to minimize not only the army’s influence but, through the constitution, that of any other group opposed to them. Having used democracy as a vehicle with which to gain power, the MB now seeks how best to disable it so those opposing its views cannot drive it to a similar destination. 

In drafting the constitution, the MB will do everything possible to avoid its fiduciary responsibility as a majority party not to abuse the rights of minority parties.

As the army seeks to maximize its role and the MB to minimize it, we already see an effort by the military to manipulate the importance of its role in Egypt’s future. This may well be why it announced its largest military exercise last week—one aimed at defending the Sinai Peninsula against an Israeli pre-emptive strike. 

With tensions between Iran and Israel mounting over Tehran’s nuclear program, the Egyptian army claims its own recently announced nuclear program to build four plants exposes Egypt to a possible Israeli strike. In the past, the army has used the ruse of a perceived Israeli attack to take the focus off its domestic conduct; now it turns to the ruse in hopes of extending its domestic influence.

There is one critical factor in this power play that may throw a wrench into the MB’s plans while enhancing the army’s. Egypt’s economy is in dire straits. Tourism, a $10 billion a year cash cow for Egypt, has slowed to a trickle. 

 Despite Egypt having the largest Arab population in the world, almost half of it is illiterate, with many unemployed. Most of the educated attended Arab universities that have failed to equip graduates with the necessary skill sets to achieve gameful employment. Half the country’s food requirements are imported at a time Egypt cannot afford to pay for them. 

Serious domestic unrest lies ahead, which would provide the army with an opening to return to martial law and maintain power.  

The MB and army sit in the front seat of a vehicle supposedly driving a road less traveled in the region—one leading to democracy. But, as each seeks to minimize the influence of the other, they struggle for control of the steering wheel. 

For the MB, the destination is Islamic fundamentalism which will lead to confrontation internally with non-Muslims and externally with Israel. For the army, the destination is stability with Israel but with the country under a military authority that only attaches a secondary importance to human rights. 

Sadly, the liberal democrats who started the journey are relegated to the back seat, not knowing whether the vehicle will crash or take a wrong turn. After so much sacrifice on their part, their final destination remains uncertain. 

They had better fasten their seatbelts, however, as they are in for a very difficult ride.