The International Crisis Group (CG) has issued a report recommending that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood be integrated in Egyptian political life. According to a summary of the report:
The three-year clash between the government and the Muslim Brothers is damaging Egypt’s political life. Ending this confrontation and moving towards the long-term goal of integrating the Brothers into the political mainstream is a far better option. The regime should recognise the Muslim Brothers’ ambition to create a legal political party, take the opportunity to set clear standards for integration and end its campaign of mass arrests, made possible by the draconian Emergency Law. For their part, the Muslim Brothers should finalise and clarify their political program in order to reassure their critics.
According to its website:
Crisis Group was founded in 1995 as an international non-governmental organisation on the initiative of a group of well known transatlantic figures who despaired at the international community’s failure to anticipate and respond effectively to the tragedies in the early 1990s of Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia. They were led by Morton Abramowitz (former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Thailand, then President of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace), Mark Malloch Brown (later head of the UNDP, Deputy Secretary-General of the UN and UK Minister for Africa, Asia and the UN), and its first Chairman, Senator George Mitchell. The idea was to create a new organisation – unlike any other – with a highly professional staff acting as the world’s eyes and ears for impending conflicts, and with a highly influential board that could mobilise effective action from the world’s policy-makers
The organization has a full-time staff of 140 and and annual budget of $15 million.
The ICG is chaired by Chris Patten, former European Commissioner for External Relations, Thomas R Pickering, former U.S. Ambassador, and Gareth Evans, former foreign minister of Australia. Notable members of the board include former Carter NSA chief Zbigniew Brzezinski, financier George Soros, former Nato commander Wesley Clark, and former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer.
One of the more interesting members of the ICG Board is former Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim who has many ties to the global Muslim Brotherhood including helping to found the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) where he currently serves as a director, representing Asian youth and serving as a trustee for the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) during the 1970’s and early 1980’s, and appearances at numerous Brotherhood-linked conferences. His ICG bio omits this background.