There’s some good news that has come out of the United States and that is that President Trump has set in motion the process that will make the Muslim Brotherhood a designated foreign terrorist organisation. It’s about time this happened as the Muslim Brotherhood have been at the heart of much of the radicalisation that has caused so much trouble for Egypt, the nation in which this group originated. This is also a welcome move as there are other nations that have Muslim Brotherhood offshoots and front groups working within them.
It appears that President Trump was moved to start the process of putting restrictions on the movements and funding of the Muslim Brotherhood following a visit to the White House by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in early April of this year. The Muslim Brotherhood have been a consistent thorn in the side for the Egyptian government and groups such as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) whilst not being directly connected with the Muslim Brotherhood, do have significant ties to them. The Muslim Brotherhood are a major force when it comes to radicalisation of Muslims and CAIR’s support of obnoxious individuals such as US Representative Ilhan Omar has become increasingly noticed by both political commentators and the general public in the USA.
This is a bold move by President Trump and one that has been long overdue. The Muslim Brotherhood took advantage of the convulsions from the Arab Spring which overturned former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s government and went on to run the country for a short while through president Mohammed Morsi. Morsi was overthrown following protests in 2013 and the current Egyptian president was installed. As a supporting force behind former president Morsi and with the Muslim Brotherhood’s links to and past support for Islamists it is little wonder that the current Egyptian government is concerned about the Brotherhood’s actions and influence.
As you will see from the BBC report on this decision by the White House which is linked here, many of the usual whiners have turned out to criticise President Trump’s decision. The Brotherhood themselves have complained about this decision and have come out with a ‘not me guv’nor’ statement in which they describe their group as ‘peaceful’.
Even if the decision by the Trump administration to set in motion the procedures to ban the Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t do much short term harm to the entity, it does send a powerful message to the world. That message is that President Trump’s government does, unlike some previous administrations, recognise the danger posed by Islamic groups that pose as peaceful but who in reality encourage radicalism and the violence that almost inevitably springs from such radicalism. For this action President Trump deserves much praise as it clearly states that the USA will not tolerate such intolerable Islamist groups as the Muslim Brotherhood.
In 2015 here in the UK there was a government review of the Muslim Brotherhood.The final sentence in the report was “Aspects of Muslim Brotherhood ideology and tactics in this country and overseas are contrary to our values and have been contrary to our national interests and our national security” Prime Minister David Cameron’s response was “Membership or association with the muslim brotherhood is a possible indication of extremism but it will not be banned”!
The MB should have been banned, along with a whole host of other Islamic groups of variable dodginess. Let’s hope that President Trump’s action inspires the British Govt to undertake a similar action.