Former Mossad chief Shabtai Shavit warned on Tuesday 5/31/11that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is using mosques as the headquarters of its party branches, while gradually, but inexorably seeking to establish a Shari’a-based state. He added that the Muslim Brotherhood remained the only viable organized political force in Egypt, while the current military council heading the country until elections was merely a transitional “link between the old hated regime and its replacement”-i.e., by the Brotherhood.

Shavit also maintained that the pillars of the former Mubarak regime, including the ruling party, the interior ministry, and prisons were actively being dismantled in Egypt. Skillfully maneuvering itself through Egypt’s current turmoil, Shavit observed further that the Muslim Brotherhood’s immediate goal was to be a balance changer in parliament, following the upcoming parliamentary elections.

After that, they would like to place the country under Shari’a law.

The Muslim Brotherhood could not be crushed by past regimes because of its dual identity as a religious and a political movement. Every mosque is a party branch headquarters. Every cleric at the mosque is the party branch chairman. A contribution to the mosque is a contribution to the party.

Richard Mitchell’s seminal analysis of the Muslim Brotherhood, state’s simply, that from its advent,

Throughout the history of the movement the mosque continued to be its principal recruiting office.

Charles Wendell describes aptly what the Brotherhood has been inculcating amongst the Muslim masses from this vast network of supporting mosques for seven decades:

[T]hey had, on the basis of a ready-made program for a world crusade that required only actors and a leader. Islam from the beginning had been a proselytizing faith.

The Brotherhood’s patience and perseverance may at long last be on the cusp of “success.”