I disagree with many who see the US decision to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization as a step toward greater security. This disagreement does not mean denial or approval, but rather a deep understanding of hidden intentions waiting for the right moment to reveal themselves.

From my point of view, this decision is a kiss of life and a rehabilitation for a group that had lost its influence and was on the verge of extinction, turning it into the most deadly player in the coming period.

What we have here is not just an analysis but a strategic lament and a cautionary tale of what is to come. It is a story of “how a superpower, in a moment of tactical short-sightedness, fails to destroy its opponent but instead creates a more dangerous version of it, opening the gates of hell to its allies.”

This decision is not a chapter in the war on terror but rather the logical prelude to the coming war.

America's flawed compass: three shifts in counterterrorism policy

The compass of US policy has changed radically. After counterterrorism was the absolute doctrine that governed everything since the September attacks, today it has become merely a secondary tool in a larger toolbox, which is competition with the superpowers.

This is the first shift, meaning that terrorism is no longer an existential threat, but rather an issue that is managed in a way that serves the larger confrontation with China and Russia. This has been accompanied by a second shift in approach, with the US withdrawing from costly direct wars and adopting a policy of “remote empowerment,” i.e., arming and training regional allies and supporting them with intelligence and legal assistance to fight wars on its behalf.

But the third and most dangerous shift was in the definition of the enemy itself. The definition of terrorism was expanded elastically to include political opponents who practiced violence timidly within their communities in a functional manner that served policies that were sometimes limited and sometimes pathological. At the heart of this new strategy was the Muslim Brotherhood.

This shift between political opposition and armed violence was not merely a change in terminology but a toxic change in the philosophy of American power.

The Syrian model: the bloody lesson that no one wants to learn

To understand where this path is leading us, we need not predict the future but only look behind us, to Syria. Syria today stands as living proof that comprehensive repression does not kill the Islamic idea, but only its moderate version.

When Hafez al-Assad decided in the 1980s to crush the Muslim Brotherhood, he did not destroy political Islam but rather a generation that believed in parliament and trade unions, pushing the survivors into clandestine work and global jihad in Afghanistan.

When the Syrian revolution erupted, the political Brotherhood was powerless in Istanbul hotels, while the vacuum on the ground was filled by the children of that repressive experiment, the jihadists who learned that guns speak louder than ballot boxes. Today, the heir to that jihadist school sits in Damascus, while the Brotherhood writes documents on democracy that no one reads. This is the harsh Syrian lesson: repression does not produce moderation but rather selects the most extreme and violent to be the ultimate victor.

The future of the Middle East: between a delayed explosion and a new jihad

Looking ahead to the coming decade, the most likely scenario is a “delayed explosion.” An apparent calm covers up social, economic, and political tensions building up beneath the surface, and with the first succession crisis or economic collapse, these tensions will explode in everyone's face. At that point, the alternative will not be liberal parties or even the traditional Brotherhood, but a new hybrid generation combining Islamic ideology, jihadist tactics, and political pragmatism—a more complex and ferocious version of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

There is also a darker scenario, which is the birth of “Jihadism 3.0,” transnational terrorist networks that target not only regimes but also Western interests in the region and perhaps in their own backyard, inspired by the discourse of victimhood that the US decision generously provides them with.

Europe and NATO: dragging the old continent into the southern storm

The shockwaves from this earthquake that began in Washington will not stop at the borders of the Middle East; their impact is now hitting the shores of Europe with full force. The European continent, barely catching its breath from the war in Ukraine, finds itself being dragged into a new southern front for which it was unprepared.

The US decision puts it in a legal and social quandary, as there is a wide network of Islamic associations ideologically linked to the Brotherhood spread across its territory. Now it is required to either ban them and ignite an internal social crisis or oppose Washington and bear the consequences.

Even more dangerous is the Turkish dilemma: how can NATO classify a group as terrorist when the government of one of its largest member states belongs to the same ideological school? It is an explosion of the alliance from within. All this opens the door for Europe's adversaries, such as Russia, to use the mass migration that will result from the chaos in the south as a hybrid weapon to plunge the continent into endless crises and fuel the far right, which threatens to dismantle the European project from its foundations.

Those who create their own enemies have only themselves to blame.

This decision is not a solution to any problem but rather a generator of future crises. It sacrifices long-term strategic security in exchange for short-sighted political gains. It closes the door to dialogue with political Islam, opening a window that looks directly onto jihadist hell.

Years will pass, and when the “Berlini al-Jolani” or the “new Parisian jihadist” appears, and when Europe is plunged into chaos on its southern borders, historians will ask, "How did we get here?” The answer will be clear and simple: it all began with one decision, in a moment of strategic blindness, when the world's greatest power decided to create its next enemy with its own hands.

The countdown to disaster: when will Europe go up in flames, and how can it extinguish the fire?

What awaits Europe is not a single thunderous explosion, but a snowballing collapse, proceeding according to a malicious and complex timetable, the course of which we can trace with frightening accuracy if we read the current indicators with an expert eye.

The timing of the fire: from a cold spark to a raging inferno

In my strategic assessment, the “burning of Europe” will go through three overlapping stages, each with its own flames.

The first stage, which will begin immediately and continue for the next two years, is what I call the “stage of institutional suffocation.” We will not see blood on the streets yet, but we will see paralysis in the European banking and judicial systems.

European banks will find themselves in a state of panic, forced to freeze the accounts of hundreds of Islamic associations and centres for fear of US sanctions, creating a state of silent turmoil within Muslim communities that will suddenly feel financially and socially besieged. During this period, Turkey will begin to use its leverage within NATO, and we will witness diplomatic paralysis between Brussels and Ankara. It is an “administrative” fire that consumes trust but does not yet burn bodies.

The second and most dangerous phase will begin to emerge between the third and fifth years of the decision's implementation. Here we will begin to see the results of the “Syrian model” transferred to North Africa and Egypt. As repression intensifies and political prospects become blocked, unprecedented waves of migration will begin to flow towards the southern coasts of Europe. This will not be normal economic migration, but rather migration driven by “existential despair,” through which radical elements will infiltrate.

At the same time, the young European Muslim generation, which has seen its institutions shut down and its symbols demonized, will begin to search for alternatives. Because the moderate political alternative has been “banned,” the only alternative available will be the digital underground of jihadist organizations. At this stage, incidents involving “lone wolves” will begin to escalate, and the suburbs of Paris and Belgium will become veritable time bombs.

The third stage, that of “full ignition,” may become clearly visible by the end of the current decade. By then, the far right will have capitalized on this chaos to come to power in major European capitals, using the American decision as a pretext to wage cultural and legislative wars against Muslims. Europe will then become an open battlefield: terrorist attacks on one side, right-wing violence on the other, and torn communities losing their democratic identity. This is the nightmare scenario that Washington has created and that Europe is waiting for.

Lifeline: How can Europe avoid suicide?

But is this fate inevitable? The answer is no, provided that Europe has the courage to engage in “strategic disobedience” toward Washington. Survival requires European leaders to take bold steps that may seem shocking to their American ally but are necessary for survival.

The first and most urgent step is “legal and political separation.” Europe must clearly and unanimously declare that its definition of terrorism differs from that of the US. It must refuse to blindly apply US sanctions on its territory and protect its financial institutions from legal blackmail from across the Atlantic. Europe must insist that the Muslim Brotherhood, with its European branch, is a political and social movement that is accountable under European law if it errs, and not according to the “political mood” of the White House. This distinction is not a defence of the group but a defence of European sovereignty and civil peace.

The second step is to “protect the firewall.” The intelligence services in Berlin, Paris, and London are well aware that associations affiliated with the political Islamist movement play the role of “firefighters” within their communities, absorbing the anger of young people and steering them away from senseless violence. Therefore, instead of banning these associations as Washington wants, Europe must strengthen its channels of communication with them and use them as a last line of defence against the spread of ISIS and Al-Qaeda ideology. Dismantling these intermediary structures is the shortest route to chaos, and preserving them is a matter of utmost security necessity.

The third and most strategic step is for European diplomacy to exert enormous pressure to prevent a repeat of the Syrian scenario in the Middle East, because the price of the collapse of these countries will not be paid by the Americans sitting behind the ocean, but by the Europeans, who are only a few kilometres away from the disaster across the Mediterranean Sea.

Conclusion

Europe today faces an existential test. Either it follows its American ally in its reckless adventure and invites fire into its own backyard, or it decides that its national security and social sovereignty are more important than “Atlantic solidarity.” Time is running out, and the spark ignited in Washington is slowly but surely approaching the European powder keg.