SEE Interviews Irina Tsukerman about Muslim Brotherhood in West Part II

Sada ElBalad English (SEE) news website made an interview with Irina Tsukerman, American Lawyer and National Security Analyst. The first part of the interview was published on Wednesday and the second part came as follows:

What is the future of the bill submitted by Senator Ted Cruz to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization?

Congress generally lacks authority in designating terrorist organizations, but it can compel the executive branch (the President, State Department and Treasury) to be forced to consider a proposed measure and then have to justify to Congress why it has not been adopted (which is what the bill is attempting to do).

So far, the arguments made against designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization by the various administrations have relied largely on lobbying from Muslim Brotherhood front organizations as well as government institutions that have a symbiotic relationship with these groups.

For that reason, Congress should independently hold a series of public hearings and do a major campaign related to financial transparency and corruption to reveal the methods these groups employ and to make it difficult for the executive branch to justify their continuous engagement with obviously manipulative organizations.

Worth noting is that UAE has designated CAIR as a terrorist organization independently of the Muslim Brotherhood. While the legal standards for terrorism and accessories to crimes are different in the US, CAIR can suffer a number of legal and political consequences even without hard evidence linking it directly to Muslim Brotherhood’s global leadership, as can a number of other front organizations.

Furthermore, Senator Cruz and others may consider pursuing RICO statutes that govern organized crime designations in holding CAIR and Muslim Brotherhood activists accountable for their illegal activities. Still, evidence has emerged that MB has taken direct part in terrorist attacks in African countries.

Undercover sting and intelligence operations may still be required the complicity of the front organizations in the US, but such operations in support of the bill may uncover other illicit activities, such as taking illegal donations from foreign donors.

[caption id="attachment_307790" align="alignnone" width="949"] SEE Editor-in-Chief Mohamed Wadie And Editor-in-Chief of The Washington Outsider and President of Scarb Rising. Inc. Irina Tsukerman[/caption]

What has Senator Cruz done to obtain congressional support for the bill, and do you expect this effort to succeed?

Senator Cruz has already obtained several co-sponsors for this bill, but it is not likely to succeed so far as Democrats dominate both Houses of Congress due to lack of political will on their part. And even with Republicans in the majority, it will be an uphill battle for two reasons: first, it is not a priority for any of the presidents so far, so there is no motivation to try to get it passed and second, even within the Republican ranks there is a lack of understanding of what Muslim Brotherhood is and the threat that it presents.

For that reason, it's important to bring in guests for briefings on this subject and to push through an information campaign within Congress and in the media to gauge attention and interest.

Simultaneously, there needs to be a popular outreach to the voters to gauge the interest of the public and to put pressure on political representatives to support this measure. Some elected officials will support a bill because they owe political favors or in exchange for reciprocal support for their own projects, but that's not nearly enough in the event of a controversial bill where the stakes are high.

There needs to be a concerted effort tt make this measure popular and a priority for the leading think tanks, media, as well as average Americans who are normally detached from such issues. I think overall the focus should be on exposing foreign and seditious influence detrimental to US democracy and institutions.

If Senator Cruz succeeds in focusing on this context, he may gain support in surprising places. Right now, most people simply don't care enough because they don't see it as a big threat.

What is the level of current threat and political and social significance and support of the "political Islam" groups, especially the "Brotherhood"?

I think "political Islam" as a movement is stronger than "Muslim Brotherhood" which refers to a specific type of political Islam ideology which emerged from Hassan al Banna and was pushed by Sayyid al Qutb.

There's been talks of a recent split in the Muslim Brotherhood leadership between Turkey and London, the attempt to oust the London leader, the corruption among the leaders which has led to popular disillusionment and dissatisfaction, and talks of the loss of funding from state funders for various geopolitical and economic reasons.

Some believe that Muslim Brotherhood has been significantly weakened in Europe and is being artificially propped up by Western media and leftists, but is on the verge of collapse or at least a major split into smaller groups.

However, none of that makes political Islam any less dangerous; although MB is the best known and most experienced structure of its type there are others that are proliferating and may be gaining ground. Same MB affiliates for instance now operate under names and build roots in European societies without being seen as part of the main MB structure.

Additionally, state funders of extremism have now shifted towards financial and other support of other Islamist groups such as the Taliban in Afghanistan and various militias and movements in Africa which clearly follow political Islam ideology though have little in common in terms of history, leadership, and structure with the Muslim Brotherhood.

In some respects, MB has become a convenient boogeyman to ignore the specific and persity of various political Islam followers, which makes it much more difficult to assess and catch emerging threats.

Why did the Muslim Brotherhood lose its political power and control in Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco?

In Egypt, MB lost power and control specifically due to President Sissi's policies which aim not only at law enforcement and security combat of the Muslim Brotherhood, but political delegitimization, financial crackdown, ideological exposition of their harm, and support for alternatives and better economic incentives and structures in vulnerable peripheral and other areas.

However, many Egyptians have also become disillusioned with MB due to its weak, corrupt, chaotic, and extremist brief reign of terror under Morsi. Seeing that when in power, Muslim Brotherhood is inevitably corrupt and presents a cause for social pisions and threats to minorities (including ideological minorities within its own ranks) is the best remedy for the popularity of its doctrine.

In Tunisia, their political downfall is solely attributable due to the political decision by President Saied, who blamed the Ennahada party for contributing to the endemic corruption inside the country and for political dependence on outside actors.

However, MB has not yet been cleared from Tunisian institutions nor does the removal of Ennahada from political power in the Parliament solve long term issues in Tunisia such as the corruption that preceded the Arab Spring and never went away, the recruitment of jihadist elements in other parts of the country, or the political influence by pro-Iran and pro-Turkey actors who managed to form alliances with both the Islamists and the secularists.

In Morocco, the political downfall of the PJD, which had been under some level of control by the King is due to their failure to deliver on many election promises, incompetence, corruption, mismanagement (they were blamed for mishandling the COVID crisis among other things), and lack of ideological loyalty to their own principles so that even their own base abandoned them in the elections.

Still, that does not mean that on an ideological level Moroccans have fully porced themselves from Islamist ideological influence on local levels or in the media; it will take a long period of educational efforts, other political influences, and continuing exposure of political Islam's failures to remove ideological roots that they have taken. Disillusionment in the actions of one political party is only a first step.

But as we can see from examples in other countries such as Sudan and Somalia, the Islamists are looking to make a comeback with support from State actors and political alliances of convenience who either wait for an opportunity to return past players to political action or invest in a persity of Islamist actors ranging from most violent to politically oriented to ensure continuity no matter what directions these countries take.

We can expect an attempt by these actors to make a political comeback through various means even in the states they clearly lost through state actor patronage, in particular.

Why has the Muslim Brothrhood not been designated a terrorist organization in Europe and the US so far?

This is due to several reasons: first, due to successful lobbying the well-funded and organized MB organizations. Second, the definition of terrorism in Western countries is different from those in those countries that designated MB.

For instance, frequently there is a separate legal definition between active participation in acts of terror and financial and ideological funding and backing. MB by those definitions mostly closely resembles an organized crime enterprise and will likely be most successfully battled as such.

However, in the US, there is a possibility of pursuing successful conspiracies to commit terror through the wide-reaching RICO statutes should the prosecutors decide to pursue MB aggressively.

Politically, European countries are closely tied to MB institutions and don't want to fight with them as there is a great deal of political support among their voters, and in the US, this lack of a political will can best be ascribed to political naivete, misunderstanding of MB's ideology and Muslim communities, apathy, and ignorance of the issue.

It does not help that many Western institutions are infiltrated by MB agents of influence and that levers of soft power are squarely in the hands of the MB and their fellow travelers, particularly in Europe through increasingly so in the US.

According to many experts say that the groups Al Shabaab, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Boko Haram, the Taliban and ISIS all emerged from the cradle of the Muslim Brotherhood and with the teachings of Sayyid Qutb, your comment?

Yes, all these groups have their roots in the original Muslim Brotherhood principles and their ideology, methods of operation, and structure have all been influenced by Qutb's teaching. However, regional, cultural, and political influences have played their part.

These organizations operate on the same principles but at times will fight for power and influence against each other and to some extent may compete for resources or choose to focus on local agendas and targets rather than coordinate on global objectives.

Increasingly falling under the financial and political influence of state actors, however, all of these groups have shown remarkable flexibility in forming alliances with other Islamist groups and organized crime syndicates, sharing resources and best practices, providing political support for each other's groups, and looking to legitimize themselves as political actors with "military wings".

But at the end of the day, they all face the same problems with effective governance and internal splintering which eventually contributes to growing sectarianism, infighting, and eventual exploitation by external forces and downfall.

Unfortunately, many Western agencies refuse to see these groups as part of the same problem and an increasingly coordinated through the fluid global network and still treat them as separate problems that can be solved or managed as if they are completely independent actors.

According to recent reports, members of the Muslim Brotherhood penetrated the White House and established relations with the officials in the Obama and Biden administration, your comment?

There is no need for conspiracy theories. The reality is the members of the Biden administrations had good relations with CAIR and other MB institutions even before they ran for current office, as part of systematic lobbying efforts by the various Muslim Brotherhood front organizations.

Especially the hard left/woke members of the administration have been sympathetic to the rhetoric and ideology of these front groups, and some are fellow travelers and reported members such as Rashad Hussain, the current Ambassador for Religious Freedom under Biden, who was known for political affiliations with various Muslim Brotherhood organizations under Obama.

Biden also nominated and brought in a number of staffers and officials who are either affiliated with or otherwise supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood agenda and groups. Kamala Harris is particularly well known for close relations with CAIR.

The issue is not with some undercover stealth agents gaining access to the White House under the cover of darkness but with the fact that the entire party has formed a very open alliance with MB institutions and perceives the Muslim Brotherhood as a legitimate and mainstream voice of the Muslim Americans, rather than a political fringe group that maneuvered and manipulated its way to political power due to funding, historical penetration (MB has been living in the US since the 1950s) and understanding of the US mindset, institutions, and vulnerabilities, and willingness to shut down & intimidate any opposition.