Polling numbers
highlight the uphill, perhaps unwinnable battle we would face in
opposing either the Brotherhood's involvement in government or Islam's
role in politics. In Egypt, for example, a Pew Research poll from the
Spring of 2010 shows 40 percent of respondents with a positive view of
Hamas, contrasted with 20 percent positive for al-Qaeda. Even more
telling, 95 percent of respondents support a major role for religion in
politics. And the Egyptians are not isolated: 60 percent of Jordanians
have positive views of Hamas, and 53 percent support a major role for
religion in government. We can feel uncomfortable with both the prospect
of a Muslim Brotherhood role and a mix of religion and government, but
we would be unrealistic in believing that we will find great support for
our version of democracy and secularism.
Regarding the
Brotherhood, many in the U.S. worry about its anti-Israeli views and its
suspicion not only of secular governments but of the entire proposition
of the separation of church and state. However, the Brotherhood's role
in our now decade-long campaign against al-Qaeda and its affiliates
doesn't appear prominently in the U.S. debate. It should, especially for
those who accept the maxim that the enemy of an enemy is a friend. If
we're looking for friends, especially Arab friends, to help us fight
al-Qaeda on the ideological front that has been our most significant
shortfall, we might look to the Brotherhood.
In the U.S., we are
apt to wrongly conflate Islamist movements. Some overlap among
movements is clear: al-Qaeda and the Brotherhood have common roots going
back to the evolution of the Islamist movement in Egypt almost 90 years
ago. They both abhor the state of Israel and the rise of Brotherhood
influence in Arab governments could reduce support for a two-state
solution.
But lost in this simple mixing of Islamist strains is
the fact that these two versions of Islamism are at each other's
throats, openly and frequently. Al-Qaeda is fundamentally more than just
a terrorist group. It is a movement of nihilistic, violent Islamists
who want to spark a revolution through the tactical use of terrorism.
The presence of undemocratic, repressive regimes in the Middle East has
given the group fertile territory from which to recruit, and the
Brotherhood, sidelined by regimes for years, has struggled to match
al-Qaeda's draw among disaffected youth.
Al-Qaeda's leadership
openly discusses its split with the Brotherhood over participation in
political processes, especially elections. In an Internet interview in
2008, for example, al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri, himself
Egyptian, took a question about Hamas. He said in his response:
I
took a gradual approach with them [Hamas], but they didn't heed the
opinion of their brothers and continued in what they had plunged into,
from their entering the elections in compliance with the secular
constitutions to their abandonment of their brothers in Chechnya and
finishing up with their abandonment of four-fifths of Palestine in
Makkah ... I always differentiated in my messages between the political
leaders of Hamas and the Mujahideen of Hamas and the rest of the
Mujahideen in Palestine. I criticized the leaders of Hamas and will
continue to criticize them as long as they adhere to the secular
Palestinian constitution and as long as they don't declare their
abandonment of the Makkah accord.
We should
remember, as we consider how to engage the Brotherhood, that they want
to participate in elections, an act that is anathema to al-Qaeda. The
group's leaders, for their part, vilify the Brotherhood for just that:
rather than supporting the fuzzy goal of a stateless Caliphate spreading
across the Islamic world, this Brotherhood participation in elections
reinforces modern states that will never rejoin a renewed Caliphate. The
Brotherhood-linked parties then, in an al-Qaeda view, stand in the way
of a more profound return to a stateless brotherhood of an Islam without
nationalism.