Global media are reporting that a US State Department cable revealed by WikiLeaks discussed comments by the Tunisian President that the Muslim Brotherhood would take over Egypt. According to a report in the Jerusalem Post:
The moderate Arab states’ fear of Iran and Islamic radicalism continued to pour forth from documents released by WikiLeaks Tuesday night, with the Tunisian President predicting in a conversation with a senior US diplomat two years ago that the Muslim Brotherhood would take over Egypt sooner or later. According to a cable written on March 3, 2008 by Robert Godec, the US ambassador in Tunisia, Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali told Assistant Secretary of State David Welch that “Tunisia was happy it was part of the Maghreb, and not part of Levant or Gulf.” The dispatch said Ben Ali “opined that the situation in Egypt is ‘explosive,’ adding that sooner or later the Muslim Brotherhood would take over. He added that Yemen and Saudi Arabia are also facing real problems. Overall, the region is ‘explosive.'” Ben Ali said that Syria was a source of concern in the region, since it is “acting for Iran, and the later is fueling regional problems.” Ben Ali, according to the dispatch, said “he ‘does not trust’ the Shia.”
Recent posts have discussed the just completed Egyptian parliamentary elections in which the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood won only one seat.
The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood can be considered to be the “mother” organization of what is referred to in these pages as the Global Muslim Brotherhood which developed as Muslim Brothers fleeing Egypt settled in Europe and the United States, as well as other places, throughout the years. The global network has since eclipsed the Egyptian organization as evidenced by global Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi’s decision to turn down the leadership of the Egyptian organization when it was offered to him in 2004.