Designating the Muslim Brotherhood As Terrorists Is Complicated

The Trump Administration is considering whether to designate the Muslim Brotherhood – a movement that espouses a doctrine of political Islam and has millions of supporters across the Middle East – as a terrorist organization. But experts caution about the potential for unintended consequences, backlash, and legal challenges to such a move.

“Designating all Muslim Brotherhood groups worldwide, or even just the entire Egyptian Brotherhood, to be terrorists based on the actions of a few might well push the [Brotherhood’s internal] debate over using violence in the wrong direction,” explains Michele Dunne, Cipher Brief expert and Director and Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East Center. “So it could actually increase the threat of terrorism against Americans as well as Egyptians rather than diminish it.”