By Nabil Al-Bukairi
FOR THE YEMEN POST

RELATION WITH YEMENI POLITICS
The relationship between Iran as a nation and Muslim Brotherhood as a religious group comes out as one of the main complexities in the Arabian political front line with each political crisis where Iran is partly or fully involved.
This complexity is a result of the extreme sensitivity of Arabian regimes towards the group and the sense of security in dealing with it. In this context, the war between the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels which extended to involve Saudi Arabia and accordingly Iran, is part of the complexity of Iranian-Muslim brothers relation.
The press releases of Muslim brotherhood in Egypt and Syria concerning the development of Houthi invasion to Saudi lands raised an exaggerated argument about the reality of the Iranian-Muslim brotherhood relation. The Egyptian release urged King Abdullah of Saudi to immediately stop the war against Houthi rebels calling him to increase his efforts to reach consolation between the two Yemeni fighting sides instead. Some have understood this stance as support for Houthi rebels in the war, and therefore support for Iran.
However, in contrast, the Syrian Muslim brotherhood laid the blame for the war on Houthi rebels who according to the release is a tool in the hands of regional parties who have an extension project in the region; indirectly referring to Iran.
These two contrary stances display the scale of differences between the different Muslim brotherhood sections and Tehran, and therefore reflex how mysterious is the Iranian-Muslim brotherhood relation.

Historical relationship
The Egyptian Muslim brotherhood are looked at by some observers as the mother body of all Muslim brotherhood in the world, owing to the precedence of establishment in Egypt, and establishers are also Egyptians.
This “wrong” approach is supported by the notion of what is being called the International Body for Muslim brotherhood lead by Egyptians. However, a close observer of the nature of Iranian-Muslim brotherhood relationship from its early beginnings realizes that this relation does not go beyond the bounds of an attractive slogan raised earlier by the Muslim brotherhood: “Muslims unity is the way to restore Islamic pride”. But Islamic unity is not to exist unless Muslims pass the Ideological dispute known between Sunni and Shites which Muslim brotherhood had tried to achieve through a call for “bringing different sects together”.
However, the history of Iranian-Muslim brothers relation started in an early time when a young Iranian thinker, Nawab Safawi (1924-1955) established what has been known in Iran as Devotees Society of Islam; an Iranian organization which imitated precedent Sunni organizations like the Muslim brotherhood group.
Safawi was invited by Muslim brothers to visit Egypt and Jordan and meet with figures of the Islamic Movement there. He was impressed by the structural organization of Muslim brothers and in his return home he started to collect money and set up demonstrations for the support of Muslim fighters in Palestine which happened for the first time in the Iranian society. The relation between Safawi and Muslim brothers then reached culmination when Muslim brothers supported Safawi in his struggle against the dictatorship of Shah Iran who seemed to be encouraged by the west to hold back the drive for supporting the Palestinian issue.

Muslim brothers and Iranian Revolution
With the outbreak of the Islamic Iranian Revolution in 1979 lead by Khomeini from Paris, the Muslim brothers had come out for the revolution considering it an Islamic revolution against the dictatorship of Shah Mohammed Reda Bahlawi regime.
The brutality and severeness of Shah’s regime against the Iranian people besides the Islamic slogans raised by Khomini revolution which were consistent with the ones of Muslim brothers were the real motives behind this support. Muslim brothers had seen in the Iranian revolution an incentive for similar Islamic and Arabian revolutions against the dictatorship of their ruling regimes, who play the same role of a conqueror but under a national cover.
Relations between the Khomeini revolution and Muslim brotherhood deteriorated since Khomeini raised sectarian slogans that had not been announced in the early time of the revolution. The new regime who adopted the Jafari Shite instructions as its official sect was cruel against other Islamic and non Islamic sects especially the Sunni sect which accounts 20 million of the Iranian population.

Iran and Muslim brotherhood Today
Since the fall of Baghdad, the Iranian-Muslim brothers relation have not been well. There are some of the Muslim brotherhood who doubt the Iranian policy towards regional and Arabian issues like the issues of Afghanistan and Iraq and afterward Lebanon and Yemen. It is true that Egyptian and Palestinian Muslim brotherhood have an intimate relationship with Iran; a result of Iran’s support for the right struggle of Palestinian people against the Israeli invaders.
However, the case seems to be the opposite with Muslim brotherhood in Yemen, Lebanon, or in the gulf for example. In these countries, the Muslim brotherhood are angry at the Iranian intervention in the internal affairs of their countries like the case in Iraq, Lebanon, and finally in Yemen. Therefore, Muslim brothers are not pro-Iranian policy in their countries as some like to describe them.

Constraints of the Iranian-Muslim brothers relation
What links the Muslim brothers to Iran is the stance of Muslim brothers against the Zionist-American project in the region which Iran apparently is standing against as well. Meanwhile, many other Arabian regimes are not ashamed to announce its support for this project and the blockage of Gaza by Arabian countries is a clear example of this Sunni Arabian stance.
It is true that Iran has shown contrary stances in regard of the Arabian resistance; it supports the resistance in Palestine but it stands against it in Iraq, but at the end, these stances though contrary to each other are only taken to serve the Iranian national strategy.
Therefore, with the absence of an Arabian Sunni project, Muslim brothers should behave cautiously in its relation with Iran which makes of its extension National strategy in the region a priority to any other issue. They have also to be at the same level of caution to the Zionist-American plans to strike wars between Arabian Sunni and Shite and learn the lesson from the Iranian-Iraqi war that only served the Israeli goals.