It has recently been reported that U.S. President Donald Trump is trying to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Local sources related to the subject state that the necessary procedures are in the process of completion in order to finalize the decision. Such initiatives were also in place in 2016, 2017 and 2018, as a number of senators, including current Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, made attempts to declare the Muslim Brotherhood movement a terrorist organization. Such initiatives were not successful as the bills did not meet with the criteria of designation. During these attempts, the U.S. Secretary of State reported that there was no clear evidence that the Muslim Brotherhood was a terrorist organization.

As the efforts in the Senate did not realize the decision to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, this time, the president himself has taken the initiative to finalize the act. This process has clearly shown that there is a strong campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood among U.S. policy-making circles. It can be argued that the figures against the Muslim Brotherhood receive strong lobbying funds from anti-Brotherhood countries including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and most importantly, Egypt.

However, despite immense efforts and lobbying campaigns, these actors were not able to reach their goal. This also indicates that there is a strong resistance within the U.S. establishment that aims to prevent the decision to list the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. This resistance does not necessarily mean support for the Brotherhood, but rather is due to the negative repercussions that could amount from such a decision. Therefore, a number of policy circles that shape U.S. foreign policy, including the Pentagon, are trying to prevent such a decision from taking place. These actors argue that the legal and political implications of the act against the Muslim Brotherhood would have a negative impact on U.S. interests.

Figures working on declaring the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization receive strong lobbying funds from anti-Brotherhood countries including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt. 

Such a decision has the potential to cause serious political and social consequences for the United States. As former National Security Council Director on Egypt and Israel, Andrew Miller, argued, “the designation will consume huge energy of number of crucial agencies such as FBI, Intelligence Community and Treasury which will be expected to work on identifying persons and organizations related with the Muslim Brotherhood. This will reduce the time that these organizations will spare for other terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda that are already planning attacks on US subjects.” Miller also argued that Trump’s decision to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization as a political gesture for Cairo, Riyadh, and Abdu Dhabi, may have “real-world implications” for U.S. security.

Another repercussion of such a decision on the U.S. is related with the Muslim Brotherhood’s active engagements in U.S. social, political and intellectual life. Muslim Brotherhood affiliate organizations are the most organized groups among Muslims in the U.S. All these institutions are legal non-governmental civil society organizations that provide services in religion, education, health and other civic rights. By accusing members of these organizations with terrorism-related claims, the U.S. government will draw harsh criticism from Muslims not only within the U.S. but throughout the Muslim world. These U.S. citizens who are associated with the Muslim Brotherhood that will face criminal charges will significantly impact U.S. social life as a large number of these people are employed in political institutions, education, law and other sectors. In addition, the activity of many businessmen related to these organizations in the U.S. may also be damaged by the decision.

Trump’s decision to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization as a political gesture for Cairo, Riyadh, and Abdu Dhabi, may have “real-world implications” for U.S. security.

The designation decision would also have foreign policy repercussions for the U.S., particularly with its relations with countries that have a positive attitude towards the Muslim Brotherhood, including long-time allies Turkey and Qatar. With an already developing crisis with Turkey, the U.S. administration will allow for another area of confrontation with Ankara by designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Since the start of the Arab revolutions in 2011, the Turkish government has been on positive terms with the Muslim Brotherhood mainly due to political calculations in regional politics. Turkey hosted Muslim Brotherhood members in exile and allowed for the organization to operate media organizations that had a very critical stance against the Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi regime, which is strongly supported by Donald Trump. Another country that would not welcome such a decision is Qatar. Doha has been considered as the most important supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East. At the same time, Doha hosts CENTCOM, a crucial U.S. institution in the region. Such a decision by Trump on the Muslim Brotherhood would thus create tension between Washington and Doha.

Finally, Trump’s decision to list the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organization may also create practical problems considering U.S. policy in the Middle East. The main problem in this regard is about the definition. The Muslim Brotherhood is a transnational civil movement that has branches in almost all countries in the Islamic world, particularly in the Middle East. In some countries the organization held (and still holds) political office. In Egypt, the movement played a crucial role in political life from 2011 to 2013. Muslim Brotherhood member Mohammad Morsi served as the first democratically elected president of the country from June 2012 to July 2013. The movement was, however, removed from the political scene in July 2013 with a military coup, which was supported by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. administration cannot even sustain the decision to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.

In other countries such as Algeria, Morocco, Jordan, Tunisia, and Iraq, the Muslim Brotherhood established political parties that officially served as political actors. The movement, which has millions of members across the Middle East, advocated democratic political systems and adopted a moderate Islamic approach. Therefore, Trump’s decision to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization would create huge problems for Washington’s political actions in the region.

The decision to place the Muslim Brotherhood in the same category as Daesh, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and the PKK – groups that have been responsible for the killing of thousands of civilians – will be refused by the international community and will bring new criticism towards Washington. As the international community showed discontent to Trump’s recent designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, a similar decision about the Muslim Brotherhood will also face criticism and create repercussions for the U.S. Therefore, it would be a serious mistake for the U.S. administration to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, if not because of all the abovementioned reasons, for the difficulties in sustaining such a decision.

There has been a lot of debate about the current U.S. unwillingness to lead the liberal international order it created after World War II. The Obama administration already displayed signs of war weariness, which often translated into no action in conflicts like Syria. On issues that he cared about the most, the Iran nuclear issue and climate change, President Obama worked hard to build international consensus through multilateral institutions in the international system. However, the U.S. was already hesitant to provide leadership on a whole host of issues, particularly in matters of war and peace.

Having run on the theme of “America First,” the Trump administration has transformed this hesitation to what many would call hostility against internationalism and the global institutions themselves. From NATO to NAFTA, military and economic multilateral institutions and agreements have been targeted by President Trump. Traditional allies have been threatened with tariffs and economic pressure unless they agree to deals that would no longer “take advantage” of the U.S. It would be misleading to label this attitude isolationism per se. The Trump administration has been insisting that these international institutions and agreements be made to serve U.S. interests even if it is at the expense of international liberal order.

Just as we saw in the case of the Obama administration’s reluctance to lead, we are now witnessing the Trump administration’s resentment against the international system and that the U.S. is reconsidering its global role. Clearly, both administrations provided no comprehensive answers to the leadership question and both of their approaches have been subject to heavy contestation from both the left and the right domestically. Furthermore, more often than not, the Trump administration’s admonishment of the international system has subsided with rather superficial adjustments (NATO members’ promise to increase their national defense budget to 2%) or renegotiated trade deals (U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement instead of NAFTA). The lesson here is that neither the Obama nor Trump administration has addressed the global leadership question in a comprehensive manner.

The message to the world has been that the U.S. has been rethinking its global role in a rather confused and haphazard manner. At times, the somewhat ideological assertion of national sovereignty seems to take priority whereas, at other times, satisfying some domestic constituency seems to suffice. The response of both the allies (the EU and others) as well as potential rivals (China) have been an interesting one. Nobody seems willing to sit and wait for the U.S. to “come to its senses.”

Allies are thinking of ways to live without the U.S. leadership, recognizing that they may even have to confront the U.S. along the way. The rebuff President Trump received from the UN Security Council a special session on Iran, which was instructive in this sense. Potential competitors like China, on the other hand, are working hard to minimize the economic impact of the impending trade wars by strengthening their regional relationships. In many ways, the world is not waiting for the U.S.

Turkey, as a traditional ally, has had to adjust to the regional realities with minimal or no serious U.S. leadership on a variety of issues including the Syrian crisis. In order to protect its national security and economic interests in the region by minimizing the detrimental impact of the Syrian conflict, Turkey has worked with Russia and Iran on the diplomatic and strategic fronts, the EU on the humanitarian front, and the U.S. on the political front.

The days of alignment with a clearly identified bloc of nations are long gone. Creating a strategy based on the realities on the ground and one that accommodates some of the priorities of the regional powers has become a routine part of policymaking. The most recent rapprochement with Germany can be given as an example of an effort to “bring Europe in” in the absence of robust U.S. leadership.

In the years ahead, if it decides to return, U.S. global leadership will find itself in an environment that has fundamentally changed. The emergence of regional cooperation mechanisms and mini-alliances based on a variety of issues will create realities that will not be easy to replace.

Providing a global framework for action will be ever more difficult since many countries, both allies and rivals, will have pivoted away on a whole host of strategic and economic issues. The U.S. will continue to enjoy great capacity to shape world events, alliances and institutions for the foreseeable future but it will find it increasingly challenging to lead given the legacy of these intervening years with minimal serious U.S. role.