Part I: The United States and The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood: understanding a chaotic history

For many years, the relationship between the United States and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) has been under fire, plagued by myth and delusion. The United States and the Muslim Brotherhood have faced conflicting accusations of colluding in order to maintain U.S. interests in the Middle East or, conversely, of fiercely sparring over the antagonistic values of liberal democracy versus theocracy. A careful and rigorous analysis of historical archives and interviews with some of the most important representatives of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East shed a more nuanced and factual light on the country’s past and current relationship with the Brotherhood. The United States has never supported the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology; however, it has always tried to deal with it when international circumstances demanded, trying to find a way to make the Muslim Brothers more “responsible” and encouraging them to act according to U.S. national interest.