The Trump administration’s counter-terrorism strategy is set to shrink the space in which the Muslim Brotherhood can operate, a leading expert on the group has said.
The strategy was led by Sebastian Gorka, the White House counter-terrorism director, and included on the list of threats is the Brotherhood, the Lebanese, Jordanian and Egyptian chapters of which were designated as terrorist groups this year.
In the document, the White House describes the Brotherhood as “the root of all modern Islamist terrorism” and said it will continue to designate its branches in the Middle East and beyond as terrorists “to crush the organisation everywhere it operates”.
Lorenzo Vidino, director of the Program on Extremism at The George Washington University, believes the administration’s statement of its intention will have an impact on the ability of the Muslim Brotherhood to operate.
“I think we have to be realistic – it's not going to be the end of the Brotherhood,” he told The National. “But I would say that it shrinks the permissive environment in which the Brotherhood has operated in the West.
“There's no question that is triggering conversations. In Europe, for example, you cannot ignore that the Americans take certain positions. There are parts of the European, policymaking, law enforcement and intelligence community that analyse the issue of the Brotherhood in the same way as the Trump administration does.
“In many European countries, you have segments of the policymaking community that have moved in that direction, and there's no question that the US position gives that a push. I think there's also a reasonable expectation that the US might designate some Europe-based Brotherhood organisations.”
Mr Vidino said he doesn’t see European countries following the US in designating branches of the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation. But he added: “I think that it will push a lot of countries to take more actions that are short of a designation, but still will shrink the space from which the Brotherhood operates.”
He said the White House’s Terrorism Strategy is a confirmation of a long-held view of the Trump administration, dating back to the US President's first term in office.
“People like Marco Rubio and Sebastian Gorka have long held this view, and therefore in this document they lay out philosophical justification for dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood,” said Mr Vidino.
“The first Trump administration took that view, but they never really followed up on it. I think it's fair to say that now there are individuals within the administration who have a very strong opinion on that, and also kind of know how to make things happen.”
Magnus Ranstorp, a researcher on terrorism at the Swedish Defence University, said the designation of a Muslim Brotherhood-linked organisation in Europe “would be a massive step”.
“So if they want to have an effect in Europe and the West, then they should do that, but they need to collect evidence,” he told The National. “If the US Treasury was to designate one of them it would hit their ability to function, for example to be able to get a bank account. If the Treasury does that, then it will have a global effect.”
While the US has designated individual national branches of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organisations, European nations have so far not gone down that path, citing legal difficulties.
France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nunez has said his country will tackle the Muslim Brotherhood on a “case-by-case basis” as efforts to have it listed as a terrorist organisation would be “impossible to implement and legally fragile”.
John Jenkins, the author of a 2015 report into the Brotherhood in the UK, believes successive governments have wasted opportunities to understand how the group operates in Britain, and so tackle its influence.
