Brother Number Two Who Became Brother Number One: Meet the Man Who Might Be Egypt’s President, 9/11-Denier, Mohamed Morsi
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Egypt is on the cusp of its first real experiment in Islamist governance. If the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi comes out on top in the upcoming presidential runoff election, scheduled for June 16 and 17, the venerable Islamist movement will have won control of both Egypt’s presidency and its parliament, and it will have a very real chance to implement its agenda of market-driven economic recovery, gradual Islamization, and the reassertion of Egypt’s regional role.
Over the course of Egypt’s troubled transition, the Brotherhood has become increasingly, and uncharacteristically, assertive in its political approach. Renouncing promises not to seek the presidency and entering into an overt confrontation with the ruling military council, the Brotherhood’s bid to “save the revolution” has been interpreted by others as an all-out power grab. Egypt’s liberals, as well as the United States, now worry about the implications of unchecked Brotherhood rule and what that might mean for their interests.
Things couldn’t have been more different two years ago. Under the repression of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, the Brotherhood’s unofficial motto was “participation, not domination.” The group was renowned for its caution and patient (some would say too patient) approach to politics. When I sat down with Morsi in May 2010 — just months before the revolution and well before he could have ever imagined being Mubarak’s successor — he echoed the leadership’s almost stubborn belief in glacial but steady change. He even objected to a fairly anodyne description of the movement’s political activities: “The word ‘opposition’ has the connotation of seeking power,” Morsi told me then. “But, at this moment, we are not seeking power