Ikhwanweb :: The Muslim Brotherhood Official English Website

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood: Islamist Participation in a Closing Political Environment

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has begun to scale back its political engagement because the results have been few, government repression continues, and other opposition groups mistrust the movement. Instead it will focus on a traditional religious, educational, and social agenda...

Egypt’s Muslim Brothers hit turbulence

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has been buffeted by a seemingly endless series of changes and blows over the past few years...

Egypt: From Semi-Authoritarianism to One-Dimensionality

Egypt is entering a densely packed election cycle—for the Shura Council and the People’s Assembly, respectively, in June and November 2010, and for the presidency in September 2011...

Sectarian tensions are somebody's fault

On Orthodox Christmas day, six Copts were killed while coming out of churches in Nagaa Hammadi. The horrific crime, committed by three Egyptian Muslims, is a wakeup call. It should alert us all to the dangers of growing sectarian tensions in this country and to the horror that sectarian hatred can reap...

Three suggestions for Dr ElBaradei

Over the last several weeks, Dr ElBaradei's call for political and constitutional reform and honest presidential elections has gathered real momentum in the media. Amr Hamzawy thinks aloud offering a few suggestions to could be candidate Dr ElBaradei..

Implications of the Jordanian Parliament's Dissolution

King Abdullah’s surprising decision to disband the Jordanian parliament on November 23, 2009—only two years after its election—raises a number of questions regarding upcoming municipal and parliamentary elections, as well as the political environment in Jordan more generally...

Cabinet Appointments

President Mubarak carried out a minor cabinet reshuffle on January 3, replacing two ministers...

Sectarian Tensions

Tensions remain high following a shooting that left six Copts and one police officer dead on January 6,..

Egypt's Opposition Misled by Fixation with Mubarak’s Son

Political opposition in Egypt has been stirred by a recent campaign against Gamal Mubarak, the son of the president Hosni Mubarak, becoming Egypt’s new president in 2011...

Talking to Turkey

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan comes calling on President Obama at a particularly delicate time...

Middle East Democracy Promotion Is Not a One-way Street

President Obama in EgyptPresident Obama is under pressure to relaunch the political reform agenda in the Middle East, but low U.S. credibility and the region’s political stagnation leave little hope that typical methods will be successful. The last time a U.S. administration faced a similar situation with such unfavorable circumstances for advancing political reform was over 30 years ago during the height of the Cold War...

Revitalizing Democracy Assistance: The Challenge of USAID

Democracy is largely stagnant in the world and a growing number of governments exhibit hostility toward international democracy aid. Faced with this daunting context, President Obama and his foreign policy team have so far moved only cautiously to formulate an approach to democracy promotion...

The Taliban’s Winning Strategy in Afghanistan

The Taliban’s clear strategy and increasingly coherent organization have put the International Coalition on the defensive, marginalized the local Afghan government, and given the Taliban control of southern and eastern Afghanistan. Rather than concentrating limited troops in the South and East where the Taliban are firmly entrenched, the International Coalition should prioritize regions where the Taliban are still weak but making alarming progress: in the North and around Kabul...

Muslims Loved Obama’s Words, But Are Waiting For Actions

Arab governments greeted Barack Obama’s much-anticipated Muslim world at Cairo University last week as a clear sign of the new U.S. administration’s intention to reset America’s relations with the Arab and Muslim worlds. But there are significant differences between the reactions of America’s moderate friends in the region and those of its radical foes...

The Green Elephant in the Room: Dealing with the Hamas Party-State in Gaza

Barack Obama is the first United States president since Jimmy Carter to take office determined to make Arab–Israeli peacemaking a critical piece of his foreign policy agenda. His administration is compensating for an extremely unpromising diplomatic environment by resolute use of tools its two predecessors either abjured (firmness in opposing Israeli settlement activity) or used haphazardly at best (an integrated regional policy)...

Growing in Crisis

Although the Islamist participants at the roundtable conceded that they had failed to promote democratic reforms in their countries through democratic mechanisms, they still maintained that participation in the political process is the only option and that they remain strategically committed to this. If this is the case, then the alternative of withdrawing from political participation and reverting to violence, which has reportedly been gaining currency on the fringes of these parties..

Arab Countries Stumble in the Face of Growing Economic Crisis

The reaction of Arab countries to the economic crisis has been patchy, uneven, and deficient. Cushioning the blow, protecting the hardest hit, and reigniting regional growth will all be best achieved by an urgent and coordinated response that does not compromise important long-term goals like increased transparency and stability, concludes a new commentary from Ibrahim Saif and Farah Choucair...

Caught in two minds

The Muslim Brotherhood’s reaction to the Hizbullah controversy reveals that until now the movement is split in its strategic outlook between two opposing political directions, writes Amr Hamzawy..

Sisters in the Muslim Brotherhood

More female members of the Muslim Brotherhood are seeking ways to increase their numbers in senior positions in the movement itself and, in time, to participate more in the country’s politics, notes Omayma Abdel-Latif...

European Conflict Management in the Middle East

Although Europe actively tries to manage Middle East crises it undermines its economic, political, and security interests by assuming a secondary role to the United States and following its policy line. For the EU to be an effective player in the Middle East peace process, it must pursue greater political engagement on three tracks: the Palestinian territories, Syria, and Lebanon..