U.S. Executive Order: Towards a New Security Strategy against Muslim Brotherhood Chapters in the Middle East
Atakan Mert ÖZTÜRK tarafındanA critical reorientation of the U.S. perception of security challenges in the Middle East can be seen in the executive order dated November 24, 2025. It initiates a formal process designed to designate certain branches of the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organizations. The rationale for this step, as outlined in the text, is based on Washington’s increasing concern regarding the group’s conduct of acts of regional violence and its threat to American citizens and American interests in the region.
The Muslim Brotherhood, established in 1928, has become a multi-tiered movement with chapters in a variety of Middle Eastern countries, dispersed over time. The order notes that the group’s branches in Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt have performed or engaged in destabilizing activities. For example, after the October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel, the military wing of the Lebanese chapter, according to reports, collaborated with Hamas and Hezbollah in launching rockets against civilian and military targets. That day, a top member of the Egyptian chapter advocated violent acts against U.S. partners, while leaders in Jordan’s branch have long lent material support to Hamas’s militant wing. These acts pose dangers not just to regional populations, but also to American citizens and allied governments, the United States notes.
The order, therefore, demands the United States will coordinate with its regional partners to eliminate the operational capacities of such elements in question — and to limit their access to resources. That the Departments of State and Treasury need to make a substantive report to determine within 30 days whether the abovementioned branches are suitable for designation as terrorist entities as a formal means to formalize this process. Within 45 days of this report, any relevant legal processes should take place to finalize the designations. This timeline shows how the United States bureaucracy responds to security concerns through structured and legalized procedures.
The broad language at the document’s end highlights that the order does not modify existing powers of federal agencies, and does not confer on individuals any rights or benefits under law. Instead, it is a directive to channel the actions of the government within the scope of existing U.S. law.
In the end, this executive order is a demonstration of the United States’ determination to take a new stand against the growing threat in the Middle East with much greater vigour. Washington wants to minimize their capacity to support regional chaos by studying and perhaps also defining certain Muslim Brotherhood chapters as terrorist groups. Along the way, what the document illuminates is not merely how the legal machinery of American counterterrorism policy works, but also the fraught security landscape that underlies much of American behavior here on this part of the world, where political calculations and human realities intersect in profound ways.
Atakan Mert ÖZTÜRK
