Middle East upheavals complicate U.S. counterterrorism efforts

between American and Egyptian counterterrorism officials that both sides cultivated over the past three decades. “U.S. officials clearly want to shore up their relations with the security services to make sure our counterterrorism relations survive the changes,” Zarate said. “They need to be prepared to tailor their relations as the structure changes. If Suleiman takes control, that means there are new top security people we need to deal with.”

Some U.S. leaders worry that the fundamentalist Islamic Muslim Brotherhood — long ago locked out of power in Egypt — will wield power in a freer, decentralized government that might lead to a weakened stance against al Qaeda and other terror groups.

“My concern is their ties to terror groups and their adherence to (Islamic) Shariah law,” Republican Senator John McCain said last week. “Am I worried about the result that the Muslim Brotherhood might gain power? Yeah, I’m scared to death. But the option of holding off on democracy is not an option.”

Counterterrorism experts say the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda are hardly joined at the hip. The groups have been foes for years, quarreling over ideological and tactical differences — often over the Brotherhood’s willingness to work within political systems instead of toppling them violently. “They just don’t like each other,” Cressey said. “Al Qaeda sees itself as more militant, and they believe the Brotherhood isn’t willing to take on the Egyptian security services.”

Egypt’s toughest counterterrorism challenge ahead may come as U.S. officials are forced to work with a new government that includes the Muslim Brotherhood, seeking common ground against terrorist enemies even if the Islamic faction tries to distance Egypt from its neighbor, Israel. American political leaders have long fused counterterror aims with support for Israel, and contending with an altered Arab world landscape with rising Islamic factions could force hard choices.

“We’ll have to struggle with this politically, especially as we go into an election year,” said Phillip Mudd, a former CIA and FBI official who was deputy director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center and now is a senior adviser with Oxford Analytica, a consulting firm. “The tension is between the need to work with these groups to continue the fight against (al Qaeda) and other extreme elements and the possibility that they may go against our wishes when it comes to Israel. Europe is less political and more realistic when it comes to that tension but it may be more of a problem here.”

Despite the likely tensions looming, Mudd and some other terrorism experts say the turbulence in Cairo, Sana’a, and elsewhere in the Mideast and North Africa raises hopes that al Qaeda’s momentum may be overtaken by democratic impulses.

“Al Qaeda sees themselves as revolutionaries,” Mudd said. “But the rise of the pro-democracy protests on the Arab street might take the air out of the balloon in terms of their recruiting. It siphons off their youth recruits.”