At a school outside the Syrian city of Hama now used by activists as a media centre, half a dozen Free Syrian Army fighters watched Egyptian president Mohammad Mursi’s inaugural speech broadcast live on TV from Cairo University. When he pledged to “spare no effort” to support the Syrian revolutionaries in their struggle against Syrian president Bashar Al Assad, they burst into applause and cries of “God be with you!” said Musab Al Hamadee, an activist who was present and relayed the fighters’ reactions to the speech over Skype.
“This convinces us that all revolutions will succeed,” he said. “We are more optimistic now.” The comment was an unusually direct foray into foreign policy for Mursi, and it pointed to the ways in which the Brotherhood’s ascent in Egypt may help empower its affiliates elsewhere in the region. Members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood are planning to meet with Mursi in Cairo this week to explore how Egypt can help the Syrian effort to overthrow Al Assad, said Molham Al Drobi, a senior figure in the Syrian movement.
A key request will be for Egypt to prevent passage through the Suez Canal for Russian and Iranian ships supplying weapons to the Syrian government, a move with potentially significant geopolitical implications.
“It makes me feel proud, and I am also feeling the challenge the Muslim Brotherhood is facing to prove to the world that the Muslim Brotherhood is capable of running countries,” Drobi said of Mursi’s victory.
“This will prove not only to Arabs, but the whole globe, that the Muslim Brotherhood is a threat to nobody.”
Yet some Syrian activists expressed misgivings. “The secular forces in the revolution, of which there are many, see that the Brotherhood is trying to push its agenda on the backs of the revolutionaries, so there is this negative reaction,” said Shakeeb Al Jabri, who is based in Beirut.
Members of Syrian minorities, including Christians, Alawites and Kurds, share similar concerns, said Emile Hokayem of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, who is based in Bahrain.
Egypt is still a long way from being in a position to regain its long-squandered role as the region’s dominant power, analysts say. With the country consumed by domestic politics and the challenges of its faltering economy,
“Cairo will continue to be the non-player . . . that it has been for quite some time,” Robert Satloff of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy wrote last week. “But the potent imagery of Brotherhood victory is likely to transcend that gritty reality,” he added. “The shock waves will be felt across the Middle East.”
