Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, a relationship moved by mutual interests

Doaa Emam

While U.S. President Donald Trump is working to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has criticized the US move, the matter which further affirms the devious relations between Tehran and the brotherhood.

Last month, the US formally designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. According to Trump, the move recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a State Sponsor of Terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft.

Zarif told reporters on a sideline of a conference that, “The US is not in position to start naming others as terror organizations and we reject by any attempt by the US in this regard.”

At first, observers of the Iranian scene thought that a 34-year-old break will not simply be ended through a warm hug between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Muslim Brotherhood former president of Egypt Mohamed Morsi during their participation at the Islamic Summit in Riyadh in 2012.

But Morsi traveled to Tehran, then Ahmadinejad returned the visit to Cairo in May 2013 as the first Iranian president to visit Egypt since 1979.

It was strange enough that Morsi and Najad agreed to open an Iranian embassy in Egypt, which is considered the largest regional power in the region, and sees itself as a political force against the Shiite majority in Iran and its oppression of the Sunnis on its territory.

But the policy of searching for allied pushed the brotherhood to seek support from the Iranian regime and normalize relations with the Mullahs during the ruling of the terrorist group in 2012-2013.

A Muslim Brotherhood member has said under the condition of anonymity that “Tehran is like an empty house that we know its uncleanness but need it at the same time.” The Muslim Brotherhood was ready to get in the arms of Iran for financial and military support, as it sought to mimic the IRGC experience in Egypt. And we can understand that by going through the very base Muslim Brotherhood ideology that its founder Hassan al-Banna picked the brotherhood’s interests over religion.

Former leading member of the brotherhood Tharwat al-Kharbawi has referred to a historical document of the Mūsavi Khomeini’s visit to the Muslim Brotherhood headquarter in 1938  and meeting with the first leader of the group, as later Khomeini became the symbol of the Iranian revolution.

When the Al-Azhar Mosque adopted a policy of rapprochement between the sects, Iranian cleric Mohammad Taqi al-Qami visited Egypt and met with the founder of the group.

Youssef Nada, a former foreign relations commissioner of the brotherhood, was described as the godfather of ties between the terrorist group and Iran, not to mention that he received enormous support from the Mullahs after he resided in Switzerland.

Moreover, a leaked document from the Muslim Brotherhood Guidance Office revealed a secret meeting between a representative of the group’s leader and Qasem Soleimani commander of the Quds Force, about the cooperation and support that Iran can provide to the Brotherhood to help them gain power after the January 25 revolution.

According to the document, the meeting took place on April 14, 2011 in Istanbul, Turkey. The representative of Iran was accompanied by his aides. The meeting was attended by one of the members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Iraq, Rashid al-Azzawi. It included a discussion regarding the future relationship between Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood.

The document stated that the representative of the Guidance Office confirmed to Soleimani the group’s support for the Iranian revolution and their stance against the regime of Saddam Hussein during the war between Iran and Iraq and explained the extent of the group’s compatibility with the Shiite flag.

After the Brotherhood was ousted from power during the June 30, 2013 revolution, leaders of the group fled to Qatar and Turkey. Ibrahim Mounir, Secretary General of the International Organization of the Muslim Brotherhood, met with a number of Shiite leaders close to the Iranian Revolution Leader, in the British capital in July 2017.

In his book entitled “The Muslim Brotherhood and Khomeini-Khamenei’s Iran”, researcher Mohammed Sayed Rasas explained Iranian motives in the relentless defense of the Brotherhood in Egypt, the Tunisian Renaissance Movement and the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas.

Moreover, Morsy broke a ban imposed by his predecessors and put forward the initiative to form a four-way contact group, including Cairo, Riyadh, Ankara and Tehran, to deal with the Syrian situation. Saudi Arabia has consciously rejected the danger of involving Iran in an Arab issue, which is part of the problem.