Trying to Understand Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood

Updated 2/27/11

So what is the "Muslim Brotherhood"?  What is its agenda?

For  much of his time in office, Mubarak warned the US and the West that it needed to support him because the alternative was a takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization he portrayed as a radical Islamist group.  If the MB took over Egypt, he warned, it would be like the Iranian Revolution of 1979.

Some politicians and pundits in the US, particularly on the right, have similarly warned of a pending catastrophe if the MB took over.  At a minimum, it would be like having Hezbollah or Hamas running Egypt, they warn.  Or, at its worst, it would mean the establishment of a Caliphate that would take over the Arab world and present the more dire threat to the US ever.

Glenn Beck and Newt Gingrich's apocalyptic warnings aside, I have been looking for more objective and informed analysis of the MB, its agenda, and its role in the current crisis and Egypt's future.  So I am gathering worthwhile and interesting resources and will compile a list in this post, which I will update as more come across my screen.  I hope others might find this list helpful and informative and that you will send me links to new ones as you find them.  I do not know how accurate or reliable any of these resources are, but I share them in the hope that one or more might prove helpful in getting a clearer, more complete picture of the MB.  Most do seem to paint a portrait of the MB that is more moderate, for now, than I had imagined in the past.

Helpful Links on Understanding the Muslim Brotherhood

New! Harvard University professor Dr. Tarek Masoud, on Fareed Zakaria's GPS
What the Muslim Brothers Want, by Essam El-Errian in the New York Times
Explaining Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, Lawrence Wright on NPR's Fresh Air
Don't Fear Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, by Bruce Riedel at Brookings
Should We Fear the Muslim Brotherhood?, by Shadi Hamid in Slate
The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood, by Robert S. Leiken and Steven Brooke for Foreign Affairs
Understanding Revolutionary Egypt, by various authors (including two of the ones above) for Foreign Policy
The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood: Islamist Participation in a Closing Political Environment, by Amr Hamzawy and Nathan J. Brown for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Egypt Opposition Wary After Talks, from the BBC