Part II: The United States and The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood: understanding a chaotic history

It was not until the Soviet war in Afghanistan, as the Cold War withered away and jihadi combatant movements were organizing in Egypt and Syria (among other places), that the United States took a renewed interest in the Muslim Brotherhood as a partner to tackle these new transnational issues. As the 1991 Gulf crisis unfolded and jihadi movements like al-Qaeda grew stronger, political and religious extremism became a top priority for U.S. foreign policy [1]. Yet questions arose as to whether the Muslim Brotherhood’s thoughts and actions exerted an exacerbating or a mitigating influence on the jihadi movement. Some analysts believe the Brotherhood shares the same plans as jihadi groups, and therefore cannot be separated from other terrorists. Conversely, others who embrace a legalist approach take stock of the Brotherhood’s break with violence in the 1980s and claim that the Brotherhood is a potential ally in the fight against jihadi groups. This question unsurprisingly became even more acute after the 9/11 attacks