READING THE RUNES? THE UNITED STATES AND THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD AS SEEN THROUGH THE WIKILEAKS CABLES

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe aftermath of Hosni Mubarak's forced abdication as president of Egypt in 2011 brought the culmination of a long-running debate over whether Western governments should engage with the Muslim Brotherhood. At the heart of that debate was the question of how to judge the Brothers: as ‘moderates’ with whom the US might do business, or as part of a movement ultimately hostile to American interests. As this article demonstrates, the idea of engaging in some form of dialogue with the Brotherhood is itself nothing new to United States diplomats. An examination of the Wikileaks cache of documents confirms that contacts of varying kinds have existed since the first half of the 1980s (with dialogue only abandoned for a brief period during the early years of the ‘war on terror’). Such contacts were a product of the normal, low-level political intelligence-gathering conducted by all American embassies; at no stage were they allowed to jeopardize America's key strategic alliance with the Mubarak regime. Nevertheless, the cables pertaining to the Muslim Brotherhood do reveal the limits of such diplomacy, with officials often struggling either to understand the character of the Brotherhood, or read the runes of its internal contours. In particular, the question of whether the Muslim Brothers should indeed be seen as ‘moderates ‘– and as suitable partners for the US – is shown to be one of enduring, but unresolved, concern. The history of this relationship thus serves as a crucial backdrop to contemporary debates and developments.