The Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt---Short Course

Even in the event that some sort of peaceful denouement might be engendered with or without Mubarak or his VP still in the picture, the Everest-sized obstacle to the US 's acceptance of the Ikhwan's legitimacy remains its rejection to this day of the Camp David Accords. As noted above, other long-standing MB positions based on religious rather than political beliefs are significant speed bumps, as in Muslim Brotherhood’s intolerant policies toward the Coptic Christians, women’s rights, its application of shari’a in a constitutional context and which school of shari’a thought might prevail.

And what about international conventions Egypt has signed concerning racial discrimination [1967], discrimination against women [1981], civil and political rights [1982], economic, social and cultural rights [1982], elimination of torture and other cruel and degrading treatment [1986], rights of the child [1990]. Of course, the current Mubarak regime often fails to observe many of these conventions, but the MB would be examined much more closely, perhaps, for infractions than Mubarak.

In the words of an old British saw, accepting the Ikhwan would be like swallowing a camel while rejecting Mubarak might be straining at a gnat.