


The Brothers flex their muscles

An Islamist president begins cannily to assert his ideology

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Readers' comments



haha washington is packed by incredible dimwitted one generation removed from corn fields farmers.When wouldthey gonna get through their wobble brains that democratic islamic countries will always be in a semi state of war with america.


During the Arab Spring, unlike other revolutionaries, the Islamic Brothers were not looking for freedom for all but the freedom exclusively for themselves to express their view. Sadly, they are the sole benefactor of the Arab Spring. Soon, everyone in the West will miss the day that Mubarak was in charged because Islamic Brothers are also a dictator except this dictator is not friendly to the West.
The problem is never Islam but the bigots who hijack Islam to advance their own bigotry.

iqbal economist

The west perception about Egyptian Islamic revolution is absolutely wrong that they will follow the Iranian types of Islam. Egypt is a sunni Islamic state so they knows the norms of Islam well than Iranian shia Islam.
Islam is not ritual based religion, it’s teaching mention complete code of life regarding politics, social and economics relationship with their neighbors and other societies that how to maintain the day to day activities.
West understands Islam is the religion like Christianity which based on rituals rather. While teachings of Islam mention us as a system that it has capability to resolve social, political and economics issues in modern time.
President Morsi is a balance person that he knows well how to develop the relation with west according under Islamic norms in which to respect the dignity of others.
But there is need to abundant extremist ideology of west scholar to bear the others. Otherwise the gulf of conflicts can not be contract except to create more violence.
Morsi is doing efforts to make best relation with west on every stage. So it is responsibility of west to welcome them with open arm and provide support to resolve the economics and social sectors crisis in Egypt.

Michael Dunne

Don't think he is looking so shrewd this week. Who the heck would want to invest in the country with pictures of the street in an uproar?

Bad images, that make the place seem like Grozny, even if only a very, very small minority of people are involved.

Could be a bad week, but then there was that incident in the Sinai.

And the country needs aid from abroad. The Chinese may be providing some symbolic resources, but the main donors reside in countries whose embassies are currently being harrassed.

Not a good sign.

silent night in reply to Michael Dunne

It is nothing about China.It is about US government how to deal with Egyptians,in US government eyes,Egyptians are only some fools from the President to ordinary people.Egyptians need more dignity for themselves and their country,not pathetic aid from US government,after all,they aren't beggars,not fools.

Gugan Barra

There is an easy and interesting answer to all of this anti Americanism... cut off all aid, all access to US visas, all access to US education, all access to US trade, all access to US arms, all access to US goods and services... (ie no dell computers, no apple phones, no ms-word, no intel chips, no internet....) and send everybody in these countries back to the stone age...

ColoradoJack in reply to Gugan Barra

There is another answer - cutoff the financial, military and diplomatic aid to the apartheid regime in Israel and to the dictators in Saudi-Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf states and support democracy. Egyptians, Tunisians, and other Arabs have not forgotten the US us pportforMubarak, and all the other dictators that were overthrown with no support or help from the US or the US support for crushing the Democracy movement in Bahrein.

Puntmeister in reply to ColoradoJack

I agree the US is too lopsided towards Israel - we need to take a more balanced, pragmatic, realistic approach to the Israeli/Palestinean conflict.

As for aid to the Gulf States: What aid? The US provides substantial aid to Egypt & Israel - but the rest recieve little to no direct aid (indirect aid via purchasing of oil....well, yeah....).

The US did provide support in overthrowing Quaddafi. The US publicly backed the overthrow of Mubarak - our direct aid was unnecessary and unwarranted.

The US did not publicly support the crushing of the democracy movement in Bahrain. At best, we remained silent.

Obama has taken a tact of minimal direct intervention in Middle East States. Our history of more direct intervention there hasn't prove so succesfull...

Todd T

None of this speculation matters. The fact is that part of the world is made up of a culture born in the 7th century and has not modernized itself. As long as the average citizen believes it is ok to kill girls who get raped, believes slavery is an acceptable form of payment, believes using violence to promote and protect religion is valid and continues to believe they have the right to kill everyone else for not being like them, this part of the world will remain a problem to everyone else and you can predict rather easily this muslim brotherhood will not be changing anything. To say it will get worse is really not a factor, the culture over there is already at the bottom for the 21st century. As long as they believe they can kill in the name of their god or their holy book, then it really doesnt matter who is in charge.

Puntmeister in reply to Todd T

You are perhaps generalizing a bit too heavily. Not all muslims are extremists (as not all Christians believe homosexuality is a sin).

Indeed, extremism is more of a problem in the Islamic countries, which is exactly why it is imperative for the West to keep a presence and influence in the Middle East region - to stem the extremism the best we can.

It is EXTREMELY important who runs Islamic countries. A wildly extremist goat herder in the middle of nowhere Egypt poses little risk to the West - a wildly extremist president of a nuclear armed Iran poses existential threat to Western nations.

Hisham El Shebeiny in reply to Todd T

your comment reflects a very biased opinion and it seems that you are deadly influenced by a biased and inaccurate media. the attacks on USA consulate in Libya was not due to the rage over the Movie which insulted Islam, it appeared that it has been done by armed groups related to the former regime of Libya. also, every one knows that Libya is a country that is about to get up after a war, so it is expected that the security situation to be very risky in it, and the countries who send diplomats to Libya now must be aware of that. our problem (as Arabs and Muslims) with USA is not the criticism of Islam as a religion or a belief, Islam is being criticized every day such as any religion and not only in non-Muslim countries, Islam is being criticized inside the muslem countries itself. our real problem with USA is that the movie who attacked Islam is not a criticism, it aims at insulting The Arabs and the Muslims and their religion and their holy symbols in a very severe way and in a way that aimed to increase the hostility and grudge among peoples. the other problem with USA is that they are proclaiming that they respect the free speech and the freedom of expression. OK, but there must be red lines or limits for the freedom of expression, as there must be a line to distinguish between criticism and insult and also there must be a respect for the Symbols of the people around the world also the personal life. if the USA is the most important country in the world, it does not mean necessarily that all of its laws and acts are true and perfect, i think that the acts related to the free speech and freedom of expression need to have limits and not to be absolute open against any one in the world with fierce insults. also the problem with USA is unbalanced actions. all the people know that there is something called ' antisemitism ' , so are there any one in USA who can make a movie denying the Holocaust for example , if this happens in USA, I think that it will be a very big problem to the perpetrator . so, as Arabs and Muslims we have to accustom ourselves to receive the insults from the west and these insults happened in the past and are happening now and will keep on happening in the future and the justification is " the freedom of expression ". As Arabs and Muslims we must deny and condemn any attempt to attack the diplomatic missions and we must express about our anger only by the peaceful ways and we must act fiercely against any rioters inside our countries as these rioters are very very few, regardless of what the guided media are trying to describe. by the way Todd, Dr. Morsi is a college professor and he has PHd in engineering and he is not carrying a mentality or a way of thinking of the stone age or something as you mentioned in your comment. just time will tell, the people are learning every day

St. Teilo in reply to Hisham El Shebeiny



>"... any one in USA who can make a movie denying the Holocaust for example , if this happens in USA, I think that it will be a very big problem to the perpetrator."


I remember reading an Egyptian protester saying "wouldn't America be offended if something like this was made to mock Abraham Lincoln or Jesus?" No, because we are a civilized society and when South Park makes an episode about Roman Catholics being governed by a queen spider that encourages pedophilia we Catholics laugh and move on. Proof of this is that Adult Swim and Comedy Central are still standing and not firebombed. The Onion, America's finest news-source ahead of The Economist is still proudly publishing. We normally aren't babies and if someone makes fun of us we don't whine about it and ask for a public beheading.

Also, there are Holocaust deniers here by the plenty, and people who believed Jews did 9/11. And we have people that protest and say terrible things outside of military funerals. We don't try to kill them, rather we roll our eyes and move on.

What happens when Muslims in Pakistan or Indonesia burn American flags and show drawings of Jews as monsters made of feces? Do American Jews protest and throw rocks outside of the Malaysian embassy? Or when anti-Christian films come out of Turkey, and show Christians as organ-stealing parasites? We just don't care because again, we are mostly adults. What about the old American embassy in Tehran? The whole building is covered with vile, anti-American murals and every year the Iranians burn a flag there to celebrate the storming. Yeah, it's offensive, but the Iranian UN Ambassador isn't assaulted and dragged through the streets.

Probably the best thing about this is my girlfriend, who is Muslim, is offended that other Muslims are offended by such a boring and poorly made movie. The intermission in Lawrence of Arabia is far more captivating and offensive.

I'll conclude with Voltaire, who said, "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Thank whatever deity is out there that we still cherish that in the States, and that we never abandon that standard.

Hisham El Shebeiny in reply to St. Teilo


you expressed about your own culture or let us say about your own attitude toward anything that not only blame or criticize what you believe in but it might exceed the level of blame or criticism to a higher level which is the fierce insult

you said that not only you but even the Americans or the western people in general have this attitude. OK its fine, we might say that you have tolerance or it might be carelessness as you are unconcerned if someone insulted the Jesus for example or denied anything you believe in, and your reaction even might be to laugh or to smile or even to overlook and move on quietly .... all these reactions are fine for me and acceptable at least its very far from violence and bloodshed

but here, I want to highlight some points:

First, you will not be able to say that all the Americans or the westerners have the same reactions of yours. people are different as some might be very sensitive and might become angry so easy and might be affected badly and act violently while other people might be like you, calm or cool or tolerant or unconcerned . you should not expect the others to act like you and you should expect that those who are not like you might be the majority or at least a big number and significant proportion that must be taken into account.

Second, the Muslims or Arabs who have protested and acted violently against the movie which attacked their religion, are not all the Arabs or All the Muslims, they are just a sample , this means that you do not have to make generalization of all the Arabs and Muslims, as the majority seem to be like you.

Third, in my own opinion I think that the reaction of the person toward any insult to something holy to him or something he believe in , might be related to his education level and to his standard of living . so, the well educated (university graduates or post-graduates) persons will have a calm and tolerant reactions and most likely they are not going to care as they know the religions and the value that it possess for its believers and they know also that everyone thinks that he believe in the right religion and that the people will keep on attacking the religions of the others etc

So, what about the ordinary people, I mean the very simple people who have very less or without education at all, dealing with these people is very hard especially if you are going to attack what is considered holy to them, and what if these kind of people was the majority

in these case you must be very careful, and here is my point, the freedom of expression need breaks or limits or red lines

St. Teilo in reply to Hisham El Shebeiny


I never expect someone to be like me, but the majority here act like rational adults.

>"not all the Arabs or All the Muslims, they are just a sample"

I never generalized that group, and never will.


AMERICANS didn't attack a religious group as a whole, one guy made a (boring, unfunny, and stupid)film. Anyway, we try not to pander to religious minorities. We don't force Amish people to use electricity, nor do we tax Scientologists. This whole idea is as preposterous as an imam in Afghanistan declaring that the west should use computers to place digital headscarves on actresses in American movies, since he considers it improper. We aren't going to change our philosophical and cultural practices because some people around the world are upset with the idea. I eat pork and have a greyhound. Does it offend some Muslims? Yes. Too bad.


I'm sorry we disagree. But no.

jdcooper in reply to Todd T

Is that what the average Muslim believes? Thank you for the information, Oh Todd T, shrine of insight on what and how Muslims think. But if Muslims are these animals you appear to believe, why are there so few Jihadists?

D. Sherman

How can a president or a government have any authority to do anything in a country that doesn't have a constitution? In every other case I can think of, the first order of business after a revolution is the drafting of a constitution. If the situation is reasonably stable, the bureaucracy can run the day-to-day necessities of government without any legislative or executive direction, until a constitution is written and approved. But here we have Mr. Morsi doing all the things that a constitutionally-backed President might do (and more things than many are allowed to do), without any legal authority to do so. What's to stop a constitution from being written that abolishes the office of the presidency entirely?

Todd T in reply to D. Sherman

A constution is not relevant here. These people believe it is ok to sell a daughter into slavery to pay a debt(at least that was the excuse given by Egyptians in Los Angeles who had a slave for 8 years and she was payment) and then whip those same daughters to death for being raped. The bottom line is these people believe their holy book gives them permission to kill everyone for any ridiculous reason they can imagine and they can make law based on this same believe and enforce it with violence and of course they also believe they can wipe every other human off the face of the earth. Their culture is so far behind the 21st century, a Constitution is meaningless. For a Constitution to work, you first have to accept the fact you cant kill everyone in the name of god, because every individual has the right to live and your religious opinion has no effect on that right. The US Constitution is based on the concept of unalienable rights and right now the very idea of a person having a right that cant be taken away under any circumstance is so alien to them, they simply could not make use of a Constitution. All they would do is write up a Constitution, and simply codify in law the belief they can kill anyone for any reason. that is hardly going to be useful.

sara 93 in reply to Todd T

This is the most disgusting example I have ever seen. Who do you think you are simply deciding that those are think of people who " sell their daughters into slavery?" I mean seriously?
So christians are the kind of people who take their children to churches only to get molested? I think you should look carefully around you before spreading your conceit . This culture you call behind is more open-minded than people like you. People who talk about freedom while they believe no one else is worthy of it. If Egyptians were to asses america by people like you they would think it was full close-minded people that seem to live in their self-created world.


Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

Not really.

Key difference: Mubarak was largely secular.

Therein lies the dillemma with supporting democracy in the Middle East. The majority of the people support Islamic leadership, and, in a democracy, the majority get to choose the leader.

It is because of the above dillemma that the West tolerated (and even supported) Mubarak, as well as the other Middle East dictators, for so long.

Curate's Egg

As distasteful as Islamist governments may be, I think concerns of a permanent darkness in the Middle East is overblown. If the Islamists overplay their hand, Islamic fundamentalism will finally lose its legitimacy. If the Islamists do a rather good job, well then, so much the better - and then they will still have to exit the power stage at some point, because once you hold power, you are automatically seen as corrupt and given only a short lease on life by the general populace.

The only way that the Islamists can break this cycle is to rule as autocrats in whatever country that they come to power. But can they do this? Islamists have enough firepower to disrupt a country, but it's not enough to repress a restless population of millions. My bet is that, over the long term, Islamist democracies will, by no design of any Islamist or Salafist, pave the way to a normalization of the Middle East.

Ken Presting

One very important factoid which is missing from this (otherwise informative) report is that Morsi went out of his way to appoint a permanent ambassador to Israel Sept 2, and again went out of his way to keep the appointment quiet in Egypt. AP carried the story, and WaPo picked it up, but the NYTimes ignored it. As have most of the specialized commentators.

So it's no isolated accident that Morsi is acting as a cautious moderate. One of Egypt's great sources of leverage in the region is it's special relation to Israel, not to mention the special relation to America that goes along.

The uprisings this week, I believe, do not show a rollback of the moderate Arab Spring movement. Rather, they show a fragmentation of the general public. This is understandable after a social upheaval, and it's obviously dangerous. But Morsi is an example of a canny leader who is willing to work the strings of power where they won't chafe the public. I'll even suggest that Obama is consciously playing along, with comments like "not an ally." Certainly Obama accepts that the US has baggage.

I'll grant that concern is warranted, but I think there is significant upside potential in the Morsi administration, and in the Muslim Brotherhood movement as a whole.

Cosimo Rondo

On June 4, 2009, President Obama gave a major speech to the Arab/Muslim world at Cairo University, to which he invited the Muslim Brotherhood, a fundamentalist Islamic group that was banned (but tolerated) by Egyptian President Mubarak. With this move, Obama gave presidential imprimatur to a group that was described as early as 1946 as anti-Christian and anti-Jewish. Recently, the Muslim Brotherhood had the temerity to demand that the U.S. release the sole Egyptian prisoner held at Guantanamo.

jciv in reply to Cosimo Rondo

Would it have been better that he not include what is now the party in power in Egypt?
Unless you're claiming that Obama's inviting the Muslim Brotherhood to his speech gave them enough clout to win the power they now have, which is complete nonsense considering their constituency's beliefs. Surely you would not claim that Obama inviting the Muslim Brotherhood to hear a speech of his would ingratiate the Muslim Brotherhood with their Islamist followers?
If anything Obama's move seems quite prescient and strategic now.
Just because Egypt's response to recent events isn't deemed to be acceptable by the U.S., doesn't mean the political situation between the U.S. and Egypt could not have been worse had Obama decided to ignore what was obviously a movement with quite a bit of clout to begin with.
I'm not talking about giving in to demands or ideologies, I'm talking about establishing proper political dialogue, and working towards common goals in the future after developing a better relationship.


Welcome to the age of Darkness. Pursuing an Ideology based upon 1400 years old dogma may yield nothing but chaos and failure. The lessons may be well learned from Pakistan and Afghanistan where Islam is the primary source of law and governance but both states are the epic center of lawlessness. Islam permits four wives at a time which is a clear violation of human rights as the sex ratio in the world is 101 man to 100 women and if every influential person keeps four wives then there will be no women for sex to three quarters of men.

Connect The Dots

Here are the basic questions that divide the Islamic World and the West:
What is the best religion in the world?
What is the only true religion?

For Westerners:
These are controversial questions that will NEVER be resolved.
And the majority of the world agrees to leave it to peaceful individual choice.
And that it is a crime to impose any religious will with force or violence.
Their answer is tolerance and diversity.
And the separation of Church and State.


However the Muslim Brotherhood sees the answers with a 100% obvious certainty.
And they will impose this on the world.
By diplomacy or by conflict; by hook or by crook... you will join the Caliphate.

I would not be so confident in claiming that tolerance, secularism, or the separation of church and state enjoy such an easy consensus in the West.
Far too many far-right Christians are at work in the United States right now to teach creationism in schools and deny physical and legal access to abortion. They may couch it in the language of morality, but the fundamental motivation is religion.

SET Sail in reply to guest-wnesjls

Sure protests here after 9/11 and in UK after 7/11, and in other EU countries have picked up in noise and strenght, and logically so given mosques had a role in supporting some of the terrorists.
Still, I cannot recall any of the protestes setting houses on fire, firing at people or other things too violent.

Viceversa try and build a church the other side and you put your life in real danger.

I would recomment a book by two old chaps discussing this phenomenon after 9/11, available in libraries but a free summary and commentary at http://www.logosjournal.com/axel.pdf


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