The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt: will it drive towards full-blown confrontation in order to fulfill the slogan of its Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie that blood would be shed to bring it back to power? Political indications, as well as indications on the field, confirm doubts that the Brotherhood will not hesitate to make the choice of "let me die with the Philistines", after power was taken away from it by force. Indeed, the group has been, ever since it was formed nearly a century ago, working for this purpose, and has used all possible means in order to achieve it, along with the groups and organizations of Islamist violence that were issued from the Brotherhood – groups and organizations that allied themselves with the latter as soon as circumstances allowed, and especially after one of its members had reached the presidency. Along with its allies, who publicly abandoned imposing their political orientation by force of arms only a short while ago, after they had murdered and pillaged for many long years in Egypt and abroad, the Muslim Brotherhood's propaganda has launched the most extensive process of political deception by claiming to defend democracy and pluralism. Where was such talk when Morsi sat in Ittihadiya Palace, refusing, along with his group's Supreme Guide and its Guidance Bureau, to listen to any Egyptian voice that called for reshaping the transitional period in such a way as to include everyone's participation? Where was the voice of reason when the Muslim Brotherhood was engaged in everything unreasonable in order to consolidate its rule and prevent the possibility of alternation of power? The Brotherhood hopes that such deception will fool the West, which considers, for cultural reasons, that the ballot boxes should determine who rules. That is why the Brotherhood is playing on this issue, in order to bring the West to reject the current transitional phase as the product of a "military coup". Ambiguity once prevailed in Algeria, when the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) considered Western condemnation of the results of the legislative elections, in which it had won the majority, being struck down to represent a pass for it to confront the regime with weapons. Similarly, ambiguity is now prevailing in Egypt once again, in a manner that could encourage the Brotherhood to embark on a similar adventure, even if it is one that is so far not as bloody as its Algerian counterpart. The Muslim Brotherhood knows from experience that many political battles are won through international human rights groups and organizations that monitor violations. Indeed, the best way to turn the Brotherhood into a victim that would earn the sympathy of such organizations would be to drive towards portraying the authorities of the transitional period, along with the military institution, as the ones committing human rights violations, in the form of arbitrary or collective campaigns of arrests, or of opening fire on protesters. And that is what Egypt is currently witnessing, as a result of incitement by the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, as took place after Badie's speech before protesters in Rabia Al-Adawiyya Square. If there is a favor the West, and especially the United States, can do Egypt, its people, its future and its stability, it would be to refrain from meeting Muslim Brotherhood propaganda halfway. Indeed, democracy in its current "Brotherhood" form means once again monopolizing power or initiating armed disobedience, of which the signs can be seen in the streets of Egyptian cities or in terrorist attacks against symbols of the Egyptian state in the Sinai, openly carried out by supporters and allies of the Muslim Brotherhood, and perhaps even by members of the group itself. Such escalation also holds a threat for the domestic scene in Egypt, whose people have historically tended towards peace and stability, as well as the abhorrence of bloodshed, and have never known violence and terrorism on a broad scale, except at the hands of Islamists. Widening the scope of threats also includes targeting what is most precious to Egyptians, i.e. civil peace, with the threat this would entail to the possibility of restoring the country's normal economic cycle and improving the standard of living. Thus the acts of violence committed by the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies fall under a new strategy that aims at placing the country before two options: either us or civil war.
