Crushing the Brotherhood Won't End Well

It was October 26, 1954, and Gamal Abdel Nasser was regaling a crowd gathered in Manshiya Square. A Muslim Brother named Mahmoud Abdel Latif squeezed through the crowd and fired eight shots at the Egyptian leader, all of them missing. Perhaps Abdel Latif was a poor marksman or perhaps, as many have since wondered, the assassination attempt was staged -- whatever the case, Nasser went on to finish his speech to the thunderous approval of his audience. The extraordinary boost in popularity that the failed assassination attempt gave Nasser and his military comrades provided the regime with wide latitude to crush the Muslim Brotherhood: In Cairo, activists soon destroyed the Brotherhood's headquarters, while near the Suez Canal, regime supporters sacked Brotherhood-affiliated businesses.