06.02.2011 02.Adar l, 5771
Analyse:
Dangerously underestimating the Muslim Brotherhood
Analysis: The Islamists’ tactical absence from the protests has been widely misread as proof of their lack of ambition and marginality.
The precedents are fresh and obvious. Yet the US government seems intent on ignoring them.
In Iran in 1979, leftist and other secular forces, central to the rising pressure that ousted the Shah, were duped and then outflanked by Islamist supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini, who took power and have cemented it for 32 years since. The Islamists achieved this despite having constituted only the most marginal of forces just a couple of years earlier….