Publication

This commentary offers an alternative narrative to the mainstream account of the Egyptian revolution of 2011. It argues that the West overestimated the good intentions of the Muslim Brotherhood. The revolutionary forces, framed as forces of goodness and reason by western media, have become, according to the author, a vehicle for Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi, the Muslim Brotherhood, and their more openly militant allies, the Salafis, helping them rise to power. It concludes that by keeping its eyes fixed on the distant prize of state power for more than eighty years, the Muslim Brotherhood has managed to fool almost everyone into seeing this situation as they want it to be seen.