Egypt's neighbors learn lessons from Islamist defeat

The removal from power of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, led by President Mohamed Morsi, was a serious blow to Islamists in the region. Experts are convinced that it is too early to talk about the collapse of the Islamists, but all countries where their positions are strong will have to learn lessons from what happened in Egypt.

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Photo: Reuters / REUTERS/Louafi Larbi

Photo: Reuters/REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was one of the first to react to the defeat in Egypt of the Freedom and Justice Party, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. He called the events in Cairo "the collapse of Islamism, which by definition cannot be moderate," and warned: "The same thing will happen to anyone who tries to involve religion in politics." President of the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies Yevgeny Satanovsky explained to Kommersant that the Syrian leader’s “open gloating” is caused by the Egyptian ex-president’s recent decision to sever diplomatic relations with Damascus, as well as his order to “wage jihad against Syria from Egyptian territory.”

The defeat of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood was viewed differently in Turkey. From the first day of the unrest in Tahrir, both in the statements of the Turkish Foreign Ministry and in the social media accounts of its head Ahmet Davutoğlu, support for Mohammed Morsi as “the first and only democratically elected president of Egypt” was clearly visible. After the military coup in Cairo, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan urgently interrupted his vacation to hold an emergency government meeting. In Ankara, where Islamists have been removed from power by the military four times since 1960, the actions of the Egyptian army were perceived extremely negatively. Which is not surprising. The Turkish ruling Justice and Development Party, along with the Palestinian group Hamas, provided strong support to the overthrown leadership of Egypt. And the Egyptian ex-president saw the Turkish prime minister as his ideological patron and key ally.

“The loss of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt will serve as a serious reason for reflection in Tunisia, Libya, Syria and other countries where Islamists are popular, regardless of whether they are in power or in opposition,” says Alexei Malashenko, an expert at the Carnegie Moscow Center. . Kommersant's interlocutor recalled that "before the events of the Arab Spring, no one foresaw the Islamists coming to power, and then, on the contrary, they began to claim that they seized it almost forever." The defeat of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, in his opinion, proved that “there is now a natural political struggle in the region, and Islamists are only one of its factors.”

Taking this into account, the impact of Egyptian events on the countries of the region, according to experts, will be different. In Tunisia, where since 2011 key positions have also been occupied by Islamists led by Rachid Ghannouchi, who returned the Ennahda party, banned during Ben Ali’s presidency, to the political scene, their chances of retaining power are much higher. “Ghannushi, unlike Mursi, is a much more flexible ruler,” Evgeny Satanovsky reminded Kommersant. “We should not forget that the resources of Tunisia and Egypt are incomparable and in the near future the Tunisian leader is unlikely to face disasters like Egyptian - demographic, economic, environmental." However, according to the expert, Ennahda is “another foreign policy project of Qatar, which, like the Muslim Brotherhood, is not immune to risks.”

Alexey Malashenko also believes that “it is useless to impose the Egyptian matrix on Yemen and Libya,” since the tribal alignment will continue to play a primary role there. At the same time, the expert made a reservation, “the failure of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood will undoubtedly affect Yemen, since there are their supporters and opponents there,” while in Libya “the Islamists have not yet said their last word.”

In general, experts are convinced that all countries in the region will have to learn lessons from what is happening in Egypt. “Most likely, Islamists will become more pragmatists, they will be more resolutely inclined to create coalition governments, they will think about attracting professional economists and will begin to emphasize in every possible way that they have nothing to do with radicals and extremists,” Mr. Malashenko concluded.

Olga Kuznetsova

The Muslim Brotherhood was set aside as an example