Why
Iran Objects to a Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation
by Hany Ghoraba
Special to IPT News
May 16, 2019
|
|
|
|
Share:  
|
  Be the
first of your friends to like this.
 News that the Trump
administration is considering designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a
terrorist organization drew objections from Iran despite the religious differences
between the Sunni and Shia strongholds. Nevertheless, they both share
financial alliances, radical ideologies, global
domination dreams and a common enemy in the form of the West and Israel.
"The U.S. is not in position to (..) start naming others as terror
organizations and we reject by any attempt by the U.S. in this
regard," Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif told reporters earlier this month. "The U.S. is
supporting the biggest terrorist in the region, that is Israel."
For four decades, Iran's main strength was not a strong army or a robust
economy, but its militant proxies around the Middle East. Close ties with the
Muslim Brotherhood extended Iran's reach and provided the Islamic Republic
with a softer political power within nearly 80 countries where the group
operates, especially in regions inaccessible to Iran such as Europe and the
United States. The potential designation of Muslim Brotherhood will cut
such an access to Iran. A stronger Muslim Brotherhood is beneficial for the
Iranian regime and the Islamist axis, which now includes Iran, Turkey, and
Qatar, said Egyptian-based Iranian affairs expert Mohamed Banaya.
"Iran's rejection ... comes within the framework of the axis of
political Islamism, which brings together Qatar, Iran and Turkey on the one
hand and Islamist political groups, foremost among them the Muslim
Brotherhood," he said.
Iran's ties with the Muslim Brotherhood extend also to its offshoots
such as Hamas. Relations with Hamas date back at least to a 1990 conference held in Tehran to support the Palestinian Intifada. At
that time, Hamas declared Iran a strategic ally. More recently, Hamas
Political Bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh sent a letter to Iran's Khamenei saying, "With God's permission and the launch of a
vigorous popular Intifada in the West Bank and al-Quds (Jerusalem), we will
thwart the plot of the tyrant of the current era (U.S. President Donald
Trump) and rulers of hypocrisy in capitals near and far to eliminate the
issue of Palestine."
Warm relations between the Brotherhood and radical Shiite clerics date
back to a 1954 meeting between Navaab Safavi and Brotherhood ideologue Sayyid Qutb. Safavi founded the Fedayeen of Islam, an Iranian terrorist group that has
inspired both ayatollahs Ruhollah Khomeini and Ali Khamenei. Qutb invited Safavi to visit Egypt in 1953, where Safavi
delivered a speech to Muslim Brotherhood members at Cairo University.
Safavi was sentenced to death in Iran in 1956 after being convicted of
planning an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Iranian Prime Minister Hossein
Ala'.
In a 1998 article, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei discussed how he was personally influenced by Safavi
whom he met when he was about 16 years old. "That was the time when
the first inspiring sparks of the Islamic Revolution were ignited in me by
Nawab-Safavi, and I have no doubt that the first fire ignited in our hearts
was because of Nawab-Safavi."
Khamenei invoked Safavi's approach to fighting British occupiers:
"Islam must be revived; Islam must rule over the country; and those
who are at the top of the government are lying. They are not Muslims."
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini wrote a book three years after Qutb's execution, titled The Islamic Government, in which he
argued that the government must be run by Islamic Laws (Sharia), and for
that to happen, it must be ruled by a leading Islamic jurist (Faqih) who
will supervise Sharia's application and provide a "guardianship"
to the Islamic state. This doctrine became a part of the Iranian constitution in 1979 after which Khomeini became Iran's
Al Faqih.
Ali Khamenei is equally an admirer of Qutb works that he translated
some in Farsi language, particularly the books, The Future of Islamic Lands and An
Indictment against the Western Civilization. Both books address the
imperative of making Islam the dominant force against Western civilization.
But Iran may have more tangible concerns beyond ideological affinity.
The United States designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)
as a terrorist organization in April. The Brotherhood might offer some
relief to those new financial restrictions, Banaya said.
"Under the US sanctions on Tehran, Iran's leader will resort to the
Brotherhood's financial networks to support Iran economically and
financially to withstand the Trump sanctions," he said. "Whatever
the US decision, Iran and the Brotherhood will expand their relationship
more than ever."
 There is
precedent for this arrangement.
Yusuf Nada, the Muslim Brotherhood financier who is
also known as the Brotherhood's "foreign minister," admitted in a
2002 Al Jazeera interview that he was the Brotherhood contact person with
Iran.
The Muslim Brotherhood's economic ties to Iran were initiated during the hostage
crisis at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Nada said at the time. The United
States imposed an economic blockade on Iran, closing it off from normal
shipping lanes. Iranian Trade Minister Reza Al Sadr asked Nada to supply
urgently needed barley and 100,000 tons of steel. Nada delivered, shipping
the goods from Hamburg to Finland, then by rail through the Soviet Union to
the Caspian Sea where it was later shipped to Iran. Nada says he lost $5
million in the deal, but felt good about it because it was for an Islamic
country.
Former Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Kamal
Al Helbawy is an admirer of the Iranian regime and paid many visits
to Iran. In a 2011 meeting with Khamenei, he said
that Iran will help in "ending the global arrogance led by the United
States." He praised Khamenei as "the No. 1 figure in the Muslim world
... and he speaks up bravely against the corrupt regimes. He spoke against
the corrupt regime of Egypt (Mubarak) until it collapsed."
Though Egyptian-Iranian relations were severed after the Islamic
Revolution in Iran and the Egyptian- Israeli peace
treaty in 1979, they quickly were restored after the Muslim
Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi became Egypt's president in 2012. Morsi visited Tehran shortly after, becoming the first
Egyptian president to do so since 1979. Similarly, Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited
Egypt in 2013, becoming the first Iranian president to Egypt after the
Islamic Revolution.
Morsi was ousted in 2013 after mass street protests against his rule. He
is awaiting trial for allegedly divulging Egyptian state secrets to the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard, among other terrorist organizations, including Hamas.
Iran is "the largest backer financially and militarily" for
Hamas, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar said in 2017. "Today, the
relationship with Iran is excellent, or very excellent," Sinwar said.
"Iran has not stopped supporting the Palestinian cause, most
recently the Great Return Marches in Gaza, and the two sides have reached a
strategic partnership in this regard," said Khaled Al Qadoumi, a Hamas
representative in Tehran.
Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood may represent two often-competing
Islamic sects. But they share significant worldviews and common enemies.
Those bonds may become more significant in the coming months and years.
Hany
Ghoraba is an Egyptian writer, political and counter-terrorism
analyst at Al Ahram Weekly, author of Egypt's
Arab Spring: The Long and Winding Road to Democracy and a
regular contributor to the BBC.
Related Topics: The
Muslim Brotherhood | Hany
Ghoraba, terrorist
designations, Iran,
Javad
Zarif, Mohamed
Banaya, terrorist
proxies, Hamas,
Ismail
Haniyeh, Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, Sayyid
Qutb, Navaab
Safavi, Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini, Yusuf
Nada, Kemal
Helbawy, Mohamed
Morsi, Yahya
Sinwar
|
Print
Send
RSS
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment