DOHA: Not many people believe that the UAE would succeed in forging a GCC alliance to take on the Muslim Brotherhood and prevent it from spreading its stranglehold in the region.
BBC Arabic news website (BBCArabic.co.uk) on Tuesday carried the statement of the UAE foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, calling upon fellow GCC states to forge a united front against Muslim Brotherhood.
The news website then asked its readers “If they thought the UAE would succeed in its objective.”
Until late last evening some 46 comments were posted on the website with many saying they did not think the UAE would succeed in rallying fellow GCC states in its anti-Brotherhood campaign.
Some of the commentators said they wondered if the UAE’s tough stance against Muslim Brotherhood had anything to do with the presence of some former Egyptian ministers from the Hosni Mubarak era.
Among the prominent Mubarak era Egyptian leaders who are opposed to Muslim Brotherhood is the former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq who contested against Brotherhood’s presidential nominee Mohammed Mursi and lost. Mursi won albeit with a narrow margin.
There were only few commentators who said they agreed that the UAE would succeed in bringing fellow GCC countries on a single platform to confront Muslim Brotherhood and prevent it from spreading its influence in the region.
“It is difficult to fight Brotherhood since it is an ideology,” said a commentator while another said that this is not the way to take on Brotherhood since it has proved its ‘democratic credentials’ by riding to power through the battle of ballots.
“For 70 years, they (Brotherhood) and its members have suffered. Many have been tortured and killed and the organisation has finally succeeded in seizing power, albeit in a democratic way,” said the commentator.
Islamists are in power in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, so does the UAE wish to confront all of them, asked another commentator.
