The “Brotherhood" in Egypt does not deserve its name, and should think about changing it. Its members have proven by their unbridled opportunism that they are nobody's brothers, and that they care only about their own interests as a group. Indeed, they abandoned with record speed and ease the young people who ignited the Revolution on January 25, after they had been late to join them in confronting the apparatus of repression defending Hosni Mubarak's regime. They stood by and watched as the revolutionaries confronted with their bare chests the former president's followers, armed to the teeth, and paid the price in the form of hundreds of victims. They waited for the outcome of the battle, under the slogan of not burning their bridges, and then, the moment the regime collapsed, seized the Revolution and exploited it to their benefit alone. They refused to support the demand of the revolutionaries for power to quickly be handed over by the army to civilians, and dug a big hole for the young people who dreamed of a modern democratic government, then pushed them into it, as a result of their unbridled desire to reach power at any cost – until there came those who would push them into the same hole. The Military Council discovered the deadly weakness of the “Brotherhood", who had just emerged from decades of being banned, and realized that its members only wanted gains and positions for themselves, and that they considered themselves to represent all of Egypt. This is why it set for them many traps, into which they fell one after the other. It tempted them with the “carrot" and they did not see what was at the end of the rope, and where this road was leading them. They promised not to seek to form a parliamentary majority, then broke their promise and were helped by the military to obtain the majority, reinforcing their monopoly and distancing them from their supposed allies, who were demanding an open-ended protest in Tahrir Square until power is handed over to civilians. They asserted that they had no ambition of reaching the presidency, and then nominated one, two then three candidates, under the pretext that one of them reaching the highest seat of power would mean deciding the battle. They said they would extend their hand to all Egyptians who had taken part in the Revolution, then ratified the political exclusion law only to justify their refusal to allow for the participation of the remaining segments of society who fought the battle to overthrow Mubarak. They learned nothing from the experiences of other peoples, who knew how to reconcile and move forward on the basis of clear and honest partnership. The Military Council, experienced in the exercise of power since 1952, made the Brotherhood willingly support the steps it was taking, having convinced it of its “neutrality" and “purity", and of the fact that its role lied only in supervising a transitional period after which it would hand over the country to those “chosen by the people". Thus the Brotherhood began to defend every step decided by the military, from forming Ganzouri's government to clashing with protesters, and to defend the notion of giving it a chance to organize the process of handing over power, while the generals only smiled and found successive excuses to remain in control of the state. Today, the Brotherhood no longer has the ability to impose its choices on anyone, having not been able to do anything but approve, even if coerced, of the ruling of the Constitutional Court, because it had from the beginning refused to complete the Revolution, and decided to suffice itself with amending the constitution, having as its only concern to reach a parliamentary majority and the presidency. Even if its candidate were to be elected today and tomorrow to the position of President with a broad majority, he will most likely later have to confront a parliament in which the Brotherhood does not hold the majority, and a constitution that grants him only limited powers. And the Military Council will retain the greatest influence on the management of the state and on determining its orientation and its priorities. The battle will not end soon, and new chapters will not cease to emerge. But the Brotherhood, which has returned to speak of toppling the “remnants" of the Mubarak regime, by which it means the influence of the Military Council, is now in a position of weakness, after having abandoned its natural allies, and nothing will save it from this but a honest revision of its mistakes and a sincere renunciation of its opportunism – something it is most likely no longer able to convince anyone of.
