Mapping the Muslim Brotherhood’s options: Reform or rupture
The recent US decision to designate branches of the Muslim Brotherhood in Lebanon as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), and the group’s Jordanian and Egyptian branches as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT), marks a qualitative shift in US policy. It goes beyond traditional financial sanctions targeting organizational structures and moves toward what can be described as an “eliminationist vision” of the Brotherhood’s ideology—one that Washington and Tel Aviv argue provides the incubating environment for resistance projects across the region, in full alignment with the worldview of the “moderate Arab” axis.
The decision thus rests on a joint US-Israeli desire to dry up the environment that provides Hamas with logistical and financial support in any future confrontation, and to block attempts to rebuild the capacities of the resistance through these branches. It is anchored in the standing accusation that the parent organization continues to offer political cover and resources to its Hamas branch.
For years, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have worked systematically to construct a narrative linking the Muslim Brotherhood to terrorism, folding it into the same category as organizations such as Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Today’s US decision crowns that trajectory, granting Israel and allied Arab regimes international cover to repress any Brotherhood activity under the banner of “counterterrorism,” rather than what it is in practice: the suppression of political opposition.
The legal gateway for the US narrative in this decision is “material support.” The US administration argues that these Brotherhood branches function as financial arteries for Hamas, which Washington defines “ideologically and structurally”—according to a 2024 Treasury Department assessment—as a splinter that broke away from the Muslim Brotherhood in the late 1980s.This seemingly historical classification is the foundation on which Brotherhood branches in the states encircling Israel—Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon—were specifically designated as “terrorist organizations.”
Debate within the US establishment
The US decision draws directly from an Israeli security narrative advanced after Oct. 7 by Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies. That narrative asserts that “Hamas is not merely a Palestinian nationalist movement, but an integral part of the regional Muslim Brotherhood network,” which views Israel as an “existential enemy.” From this perspective, the threat is not limited to military capabilities but extends to the “intellectual incubator” provided by the Brotherhood’s parent framework.
The Israeli assessment concludes that the erosion of Hamas’ regional legitimacy after Oct. 7 presents an opportunity Israel must seize to deepen its alliances by “supporting Arab states in suppressing Muslim Brotherhood branches,” as seen in Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia. The Brotherhood, it argues, represents a “shared threat greater than conventional armies” and must be dismantled to strike at the roots of resistance, not merely its branches.
Israeli INSS analysts go further, arguing that the “collapse of Hamas’ legitimacy” for certain Arab regimes constitutes a “golden opportunity” to uproot the Brotherhood entirely. This directly serves Israeli national security by engineering a regional environment devoid of forces that reject the existence of the Israeli state.
In an analysis published by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, affiliated with AIPAC, researchers Michael Jacobson and Matthew Levitt argue that Washington should adopt a strategy grounded in the deep historical ties between Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. This approach would classify Brotherhood entities that finance Hamas as “global terrorists,” while simultaneously designating branches involved in violence—such as Lebanon’s Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya—as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
Yet this narrative is far from consensual within US academic and political circles. Mark Lynch, professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, for example, rejects the claim that there is any strong or new evidence proving the Muslim Brotherhood to be a terrorist organization. In an analysis published in Foreign Policy following the preparation of the decision last November, Lynch described the evidence cited by the Trump administration as “thin,” amounting largely to “incendiary rhetoric” by Brotherhood leaders after Oct. 7, 2023, without substantive justification.
Lynch argues that pushing this designation is a “bad idea” long promoted by the US right and its Middle Eastern allies—particularly the UAE, Egypt and Israel—and rejected by previous administrations, including George W. Bush’s, because it is inaccurate and would undermine democracy.
Echoes across Brotherhood branches
The US decision will not materially alter the Muslim Brotherhood’s reality inside Egypt, beyond providing international cover for the state’s long-standing position toward a group banned since 2013. Cairo has imprisoned most of its leaders and cadres and confiscated their assets. Egypt’s Foreign Ministry welcomed the decision immediately, saying it “a decisive step that underscores the danger of the group’s ideology and its threat to regional and international security.”
In Jordan, Washington’s designation of the Brotherhood as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT)—rather than an FTO—reflects a US approach focused on the branch’s “functional role” as a financial and logistical artery for Hamas, rather than as a direct military threat, as in the Lebanese case.
This designation may be less severe in legal terms, but it nevertheless carries existential implications for the group. It aims to dry up its financial infrastructure and paralyze its charitable and social networks, while granting the Jordanian regime—which manages a complex and tense relationship with the Brotherhood—international cover and a legal pretext to accelerate political strangulation and dismantle what remains of its institutions and unions. In effect, it closes off any maneuvering space once afforded by a policy of “turning a blind eye” to support and solidarity activities with Gaza.
In Lebanon, however, the US administration adopted its most hardline approach by placing Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya on both lists. This most dangerous legal measure places the group and its secretary-general, Mohammed Fawzi Taqoush, in the same punitive category as Hezbollah, erasing the vast structural and military differences between them.
The decision reflects a US desire to impose “comprehensive deterrence” after the group’s military wing, Al-Fajr Forces, engaged in combat operations against the Israeli army along the border. Through this dual designation, Washington seeks to smother any attempt to revive Sunni armed activity and to besiege the group politically and financially by treating it as a direct military threat, no different in classification from Iranian-backed factions.
Impact on Turkey
Although the decision does not include Turkey—the primary external base for Brotherhood leaders—it is likely to pose an existential threat to the group there as well. It provides regional and international actors with additional tools of pressure on the Turkish president. This unfolds amid notable shifts in Turkish policy since the 2021 Al-Ula summit and the launch of rapprochement with Cairo, as Ankara has taken concrete steps to assuage Egyptian concerns. These include lowering the tone of Brotherhood-affiliated media, shutting down several of their platforms and tightening residency conditions for some members.
These measures reflect Turkey’s adaptation to a new regional climate built on more rigid shared understandings, in which constraining the Brotherhood’s room for maneuver has become a prerequisite for reintegration into the regional order.
Impact on the Gulf
Across the Gulf, reactions to the US decision range from strategic celebration to pragmatic adaptation. The UAE has led the chorus of welcome, viewing the decision as the culmination of its prolonged diplomatic and intelligence efforts in Washington and Europe. Abu Dhabi has spearheaded lobbying campaigns—through funding private intelligence firms and public relations networks—to link the Muslim Brotherhood to violent extremism, and today reaps the rewards of its security narrative’s triumph.
For Saudi Arabia, the decision provides international backing for the path led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, grounded in the “securitization” of the Brotherhood as a “root of extremism.” This serves to dismantle the legacy of the Sahwa movement and to reengineer the religious and social sphere in line with modernization projects. The US designation offers additional legitimacy for policies of “soft eradication” targeting any remaining ideological influence of the group.
By contrast, the direct impact on Qatar appears structurally limited due to the absence of a formal Brotherhood organization on its territory. Nevertheless, the decision reinforces the path of “quiet distancing” Doha has pursued since Al-Ula, including the removal of several Brotherhood figures and restrictions on their media activity, as part of a strategy to adapt to regional pressure and preserve détente with Riyadh and Cairo.
Fork in the road
The Middle East is passing through a moment of “refounding,” driven by Israeli dominance under US sponsorship and aimed at imposing a new geopolitical reality. In this context, the US decision should not be read as an isolated punitive measure, but as part of a comprehensive strategy to dry up the intellectual and social sources of any form of resistance or refusal across the region.
This external pressure converges with Arab regimes’ use of the “Brotherhood scarecrow” to tighten security control over the public sphere and uproot dissent more broadly. Faced with these existential challenges—and with the state of organizational fragmentation afflicting the group—the future points to three primary scenarios.
Scenario A: Self-erosion and fragmentation
This scenario is the natural extension of the current trajectory, in which the Brotherhood confronts a structural impasse compounded by relentless security pressure.
It is marked by multiple centers of authority, divided loyalties and the deepening of the Egyptian case as a model: the organization fractures not only vertically but into warring fronts lacking centralized leadership or a unified vision, culminating in a state of “clinical death” and an irreversible phase of organizational senescence.
Political scientist Khalil Al-Anani argues in his book “The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt: Aging Against Time” that at this stage the group loses its capacity for renewal or influence, transforming into insular clusters living off past legacy without present relevance—making it easier to isolate and slowly liquidate its social and political existence.
Scenario B: Structural severance and national repositioning
This scenario represents an attempt at survival through a form of “radical surgery” separating organization from idea, drawing inspiration from models of political adaptation such as Morocco’s Justice and Development Party, Iraq’s Islamic Party or even the pragmatic transformations of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham in Syria.
It entails dismantling the transnational framework, severing organizational ties between branches and dissolving the “international organization” in favor of purely national entities operating within the confines of each state’s national security parameters. It also requires a complete functional separation between “preaching” and “party politics,” potentially abandoning the Brotherhood name altogether in favor of civilian political banners with conservative reference points—shedding the burdens of organizational legacy and terrorism accusations.
Scenario C: Splintered radicalization
This scenario is the “collateral outcome” of political suffocation and intensified security pressure. It manifests as a violent reaction to US-Israeli overreach and the absence of channels for peaceful expression, potentially leading to the defection of youth groups rejecting leadership paralysis and turning toward militarization or clandestine violence.
In this trajectory, new and more radical entities emerge, lacking formal organizational ties to the Brotherhood but springing from its intellectual milieu to confront what they perceive as an existential threat to the Islamic ummah. This reproduces cycles of violence and furnishes the international system with renewed justifications for intervention.
The need for an existential review
The deliberate conflation in the US decision between the Muslim Brotherhood as a political current, Hamas as a national liberation movement and jihadist organizations as a third category shifts the burden squarely onto the Brotherhood itself. Clinging to the traditional hierarchical or clandestine organizational form is no longer viable in an age of digital exposure and security dominance.
The lesson from other ideological transformations is clear, rigidity leads to extinction. A deep review of the group’s positioning—and perhaps a courageous decision to dissolve the organization in its current form—may be the only path not merely to save individuals, but to liberate the “idea” from the prison of the “organization,” stripping repressive policies of the political scarecrow on which they feed.