The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is well aware that Colonel General Abdul Fatah Al-Sisi's statement, by virtue of which Dr. Mohamed Morsi was deposed, was like a bullet fired from a gun that will never again return to it. Rather, the same gun could fire more bullets, and Morsi being reinstated as President is therefore out of the question from the start. Thus, the wheel will turn, even amid hills, mountains, plains and forests, and it will not stop. There is no way to even ask when Morsi will return or when Al-Sisi will back down. Rather, the more important question is the one regarding the future of the Muslim Brotherhood itself, in light of the failed experience of its rule of the greatest Arab country for a year. During that year, the Brotherhood has lost its once-abundant reserves of sympathy among the people, which had always allowed it to be present in every major political scene – if not at its forefront, then at least as one of its major components. The failure of its experience to rule Egypt after a single year, in light of the group's insistence on dying for the sake of legitimacy, as mentioned by Morsi, and after him Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie, brings forth the question: what will the future of the Muslim Brotherhood be? Such a question applies not only to Egypt, where events, interest and spotlight are focused, but also to the world. Indeed, the Brotherhood's ideology is a pan-Islamic one that transcends the borders of modern nation-states. From the onset, the reaction of Islamists in general and of the Muslim Brotherhood in particular to Morsi being deposed and the army, along with competing forces, moving forward with its roadmap was only natural and unsurprising. Al-Sisi laid out the roadmap in agreement with the Salafists, who had for a while been allied to the Brotherhood, and with other political forces, in the presence of the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar and the Pope of the Coptic Church. Indeed, who would have imagined that the Muslim Brotherhood would accept the invitation to attend this meeting? Or believed that the group and its supporters would so easily accept the de-facto situation, and concede that a popular revolution had taken place against their failure to manage the affairs of the state throughout the year? Or that the Muslim Brotherhood's crowds of supporters, its leaders and its prominent figures would, obediently and willingly, start with the democratic process all over again and wage presidential and parliamentary elections for the second time as per the said roadmap? Anyone who would so imagine or believe has surely not studied the history of the Muslim Brotherhood very well, not dealt with its prominent figures, and not realized that the group is not defending Morsi's seat or demanding that he be reinstated. Indeed, that is what the scene looks like from the outside, but what the Brotherhood is actually defending is its long history, which has suffered a major relapse as a result of the recent revolution against its rule. It also seeks to whitewash its present, having done away with hopes and ambitions which generations of Muslim Brotherhood members had paid an exorbitant price to achieve, to preserve its future and to reserve a place for itself as one of society's main constituents, not just in Egypt, but all over the world as well. The Muslim Brotherhood also realizes that making an enemy of the West would diminish its popularity. It knows that confronting the army with weapons would not bring it victory, but rather the loss of what sympathy remains for it among the masses that are not affiliated to the Brotherhood. It is certain that Morsi will not be reinstated, and that promoting a replication of Venezuela's Chavez scenario represents a form of mimicry that has nothing to do with the reality of the matter. Yet the Brotherhood has chosen to make such a wager and to take such a risk. This is because it is convinced that admitting the failure of Morsi's management of the state over a year, the mistakes made by its Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) in dealing with other forces, the clashes in which the group is engaged with state institutions, its efforts to exclude others, its focus on "Brotherhoodization" instead of growth, the creation and triggering of problems instead of resolving them, would all be detrimental to the history of the Muslim Brotherhood and would do away with its future – not in Egypt alone, but also in other countries which the leaders of the group had thought would certainly follow in the footsteps of Egypt and of its "Brotherhoodization"! The reaction of the Muslim Brotherhood is consistent with the policies followed by its leaders during their rule of Egypt and is in tune with the methods of the generation that now governs the group. It unfortunately reflects their insistence on going all the way with more failure and a great deal of damage, which could harm Egypt and Egyptians at a certain stage but will later affect the Brotherhood as a whole. They are now seeking to preserve the group by promoting the notion of a military coup, as a message to regional and international forces, in hopes that they may exert pressure to reinstate Morsi, and to the domestic scene, in hopes of defections from an army that does not contain a single Brotherhood supporter, and of stirring the emotions of sympathizers who have in the first place lost all sympathy for the group. It would be preferable, from the viewpoint of Muslim Brotherhood leaders, for the group to have been driven out of power through military action, a conspiracy of intelligence or security services, a dark scheme by an Arab or foreign country or by an international organization, or as a result of the counterrevolution, the activity of the feloul (remnants of the former regime) and the dominance of the media, not as a result of its own failure or shortcomings. Everything that is happening in Egypt now is perfectly natural, but what will happen to the Brotherhood in the future will not in any way, after a year of it ruling Egypt, be natural. And whatever developments lead to in Egypt, the world will soon be introduced to a different Muslim Brotherhood, unlike the one it has known for over eighty years.
