From Ahram Online, exposing how one Brotherhood leader has alternated in support and harsh opposition to Mohamed el-Baradei:
Leading Muslim Brotherhood figure Essam El-Erian on Tuesday accused opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei, along with several world leaders, of facilitating the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and demanded their prosecution by an international court.
El-Erian, vice chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, accused former British prime minister Tony Blair, former US state secretary Colin Powell and former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi of having been instrumental to the US invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq ten years ago.
“Defendants should also include the one [ElBaradei] who covered up for the scandal… without saying one honest word that could have saved Iraq from invasion,” El-Erian asserted.
“The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its men, including ElBaradei, who served as agency director for 12 years, should be tried,” he said.
El-Erian’s allegations were met with criticism by many commentators on online social-media networks, who accused the Islamist leader – who had earlier voiced support for ElBaradei – of “hypocrisy.”
“If Mohamed ElBaradei runs in [Egyptian] presidential elections… then we [the Muslim Brotherhood] will definitely vote for him,” El-Erian said in a 2011 interview on Egypt’s Al-Qahira Wal-Nas television channel.
In other footage dating from before Egypt’s 25 January 2011 revolution, El-Erian referred to members of the Mubarak regime who attacked and defamed ElBaradei as “a handful of saboteurs.”
“ElBaradei was director-general of the IAEA and is well-respected worldwide,” El-Erian asserts in the footage.
Perhaps Erian would have a reasonable explanation for his differing assessments, but it would be fascinating to ask him.
Jayson Casper 