What Next for Muslim Brotherhood?

CAIRO — As the pro-Morsi sit-in extends into the middle of its third week and shows no signs of scaling back, and as the Muslim Brotherhood begins to escalate in the streets, it appears the current Brotherhood strategy is three-pronged. 

The first element: maintaining the Rabaa Square sit-in, fostering a public image of resilience and determination and ensuring the organization remains unified and its members psychologically charged, while officially demanding Mohammed Morsi and the previous constitutional framework be reinstated. The potential added benefit is that it provides some physical protection to Muslim Brotherhood leaders and members who are there from potential persecution or arrests, while possibly creating some continued pressure that makes going after them more politically painful and risky.

The second: gradually escalate in rhetoric (such as Brotherhood leader Mohamed El-Beltagy reportedly announcing the coming 10th of Ramadan as the “second crossing,” a general reference to the nationally popular October 1973 war’s crossing of the Suez Canal, and a direct reference to unclear planned escalations by the Brotherhood) and to up the ante in ground movement, with Morsi supporters cutting off Cairo’s lifeline October Bridge and spreading out in marches outside of Rabaa and into the downtown area of Ramses and elsewhere, where they encountered resistance from security forces and opposing citizens (with the act likely further sabotaging any sympathies the Brotherhood might have been garnering lately).

Both the first and second strategies have the benefit of keeping the Brotherhood (and Morsi’s continued detention) in the news amid their loss of supporting media on one hand, and the private media’s minimal (and often hostile) coverage and general message that the nation being is enjoying “victory and moving on” on the other.