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Egypt

Brother Knows Best

BrotherKNows Best_Croppd

By experts and staff

Published
  • Steven A. CookCFR Expert
    Eni Enrico Mattei Senior Fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies

This article was originally published here on ForeignPolicy.com on Thursday, August 9. 

To a variety of observers, however, the official story seems a little too neat. The Egyptian government rarely comes to a quick conclusion about anything except when its leaders have something to hide, typically resulting in a half-baked story that few are inclined to believe. The tale about a shadowy group of militants fits the bill, leaving journalists, commentators, and other skeptical Egyptians with two theories: Either the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and Egypt’s intelligence services planned the operation to embarrass Egypt’s new president, Mohamed Morsy, or Israel’s Mossad did it -- a silly allegation that Morsy’s own Muslim Brotherhood advanced. Lost in all this speculation, however, were the attack’s unexpected but important political effects.

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