The Muslim Brotherhood-led Front to Support Legitimacy delivered two messages in its Sunday press conference called to launch its document “The Strategic vision of the Front to Support Legitimacy and Reject the Coup”. The first was addressed to powers abroad, a middle ranking Brotherhood member told Al-Ahram Weekly, because “outside pressures have been exerted on the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies to compel them to assimilate in the current political process as laid out in the 3 July roadmap.” The source, who declined to identify who was exerting pressure, said Mohamed Bishr and Amr Darrag, prominent leaders of the pro-legitimacy alliance, had been told in no uncertain terms that developments in Egypt have outstripped the role the Muslim Brotherhood is playing in its attempts to score political points. The Muslim Brothers have been told they have nothing to gain from their policy of confrontation through demonstrations and warned that they could find themselves labelled a “terrorist group” if more members become embroiled in violent clashes. The second message addressed a domestic audience. Muslim Brotherhood youth, it is said, have wearied of activities that are not only futile but the detrimental consequences of which the young are forced to bear. “If I'm in a demonstration and someone next to me is wounded or killed,” claimed the source, “then I might be held responsible.” The obvious implication is that the Muslim Brotherhood needs to pursue strategies that will allow it to emerge from the cycle of confrontation and enter into negotiations that might lead to a settlement between the group and the military establishment. Should you visit the offices of the pro-legitimacy alliance on Qasr Al-Aini Street you might easily conclude that it is little more than a PR office. Bishr and Darrag are never there. “I think that the fact that they are not in prison,” says the Brotherhood source, “does not have to do with lack of charges. It would not be difficult to produce a charge. The fact is they have a function to perform. There are people such as General Mahmoud Al-Assar from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) who have been speaking with them in an unofficial capacity.” Military sources deny there is any dialogue between the two sides. The “strategic vision” presented by the pro-Muslim Brotherhood front differs from the group's earlier initiatives by abandoning any call for Morsi to be reinstated. While some observers say this means the condition has been abandoned the Muslim Brotherhood source has a different perspective. “There is a pragmatic wing in the group that believes that it is impossible for Morsi to return to power and to entertain such an idea is to delude yourself. It is better to work to clear a space for the Muslim Brotherhood to establish a footing within the perimeters of constitutional legitimacy and in which they will be a part, not necessarily through the Muslim Brotherhood itself, but through the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), of the political scene.” A day after the pro-legitimacy alliance announced its initiative demands for Morsi's reinstatement were suddenly inserted. Bishr, himself, announced the condition though it remains absent from the text of the initiative published on the Muslim Brotherhood's website. According to Brotherhood sources, the backtracking followed objections from young Brothers, some of whom reject even the possibility of reconciliation. “A simple survey of the responses to the initiative on the various social networking pages of the Muslim Brotherhood and its members reveals that the reactions were, on the whole, negative. In some cases the authors of the initiative were accused of treachery,” says Bakr Khallaf, an Islamist affairs scholar close to the Brotherhood. Other political parties and movements rejected the initiative on the grounds that it failed to recognise the 30 June Revolution. It is a view echoed by the government through Minister of Social Solidarity Ahmed Al-Boraai. Others insist that before any reconciliation Muslim Brotherhood leaders must be brought to account for crimes committed during their period of rule. Leaders of the Tamarod movement, which spearheaded the petition that culminated in mass demonstrations on 30 June, dismissed the initiative as an attempt to obstruct the new roadmap. According to pro-legitimacy alliance leader Magdi Qarqar there has been no communication between alliance members and other political forces. He said the alliance preferred to put the proposal to the people first. He added that the alliance was ready to revise elements of the initiative in order to reach an agreement. To concede to the preconditions stipulated by the government and other political forces, says Qarqar, would mean the alliance foregoing its raison d'être. Sources from several political parties have dismissed the alliance's initiative as worthless. According to one, it makes no acknowledgement of the grave misconduct, crimes and violence for which the Muslim Brotherhood was responsible during its period of rule. Another characterised it as a document intended to promote the idea of a conspiracy by counter-revolutionary forces against the revolution that the Muslim Brotherhood claimed to champion. As an official from the Constitution Party put it, “they have acted throughout as though the 25 January Revolution belonged only to the Islamists.” In a related development National Security officer Lieutenant Colonel Mohamed Mabrouk was gunned down in front of his home hours after the alliance announced its initiative. Mabrouk was the official in the National Security Agency responsible for the Muslim Brotherhood file and for the espionage case brought against Morsi in connection with his dealings with Hamas. Mabrouk was to have been a key prosecution witness in the case. Ministry of Interior officials have blamed the assassination on the Muslim Brotherhood. The incident has revived memories of the waves of assassinations and bombings perpetrated by the Muslim Brotherhood's “secret wing” in the 1940s and some analysts fear that Egypt may be heading towards a string of targeted assassinations of security and political figures. Given such a possibility the prospects of the pro-Muslim Brotherhood alliance's initiative or any reconciliation exercise succeeding are limited. More likely is that the drive to eliminate the Muslim Brotherhood altogether will acquire greater impetus.
