Khaled Desouki/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Voters in Minya, Egypt, took part in the final phase of parliamentary elections on Tuesday. The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party holds the lead.
Overtures to Egypt’s Islamists Reverse Longtime U.S. Policy
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and STEVEN LEE MYERS
Published: January 3, 2012
CAIRO — With the Muslim Brotherhood pulling within reach of an outright majority in Egypt’s new Parliament, the Obama administration has begun to reverse decades of mistrust and hostility as it seeks to forge closer ties with an organization once viewed as irreconcilably opposed to United States interests.
The administration’s overtures — including high-level meetings in recent weeks — constitute a historic shift in a foreign policy held by successive American administrations that steadfastly supported the autocratic government of President Hosni Mubarak in part out of concern for the Brotherhood’s Islamist ideology and historic ties to militants.The shift is, on one level, an acknowledgment of the new political reality here, and indeed around the region, as Islamist groups come to power. Having won nearly half the seats contested in the first two rounds of the country’s legislative elections, the Brotherhood on Tuesday entered the third and final round with a chance to extend its lead to a clear majority as the vote moved into districts long considered strongholds. Read the rest on: 
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