"How we wish it weren’t so, but the facts are clear. Numerous articles and columns, including the one by Barry Rubin (below), document how the Obama administration is sidling up to the Muslim Brotherhood.
This is not only affecting our foreign policy vis a vis countries like Egypt. It’s also affecting our domestic national security apparatus. “Troubling” does not adequately define what is happening."
Obama Supports the Muslim Brotherhood-Muslim Brotherhood Sees Weakness
By Barry Rubin
Not only is the Obama Administration, as I’ve written for the last year, favoring radical Islamist forces–despite the fact that these are anti-Western, pro-terrorism, building dictatorships, and openly anti-Semitic and anti-Christian–but now even the establishment media is admitting it.
A friend of mine said, “Oh, they are probably saying that the Brotherhood is sounding radical publicly but privately reassuring U.S. officials that they are moderate.”
“No,” I replied. “That’s the old way of doing things when it was important to be, or at least to pretend to be, somewhat balanced. Now they say that the Brotherhood sounds moderate both publicly–ignoring all evidence to the contrary–and privately. Those who disagree are merely Republicans trying to defeat Obama in the election, and so should be ignored. The mass media today in such matters is worse than our worst nightmares of a decade ago.”
And so for the first time in U.S. history an American government, to the applause of the vast majority of the mass media, is backing an anti-American authoritarian movement. Here’s how the New York Times explains it:
“The Obama administration has begun to reverse decades of mistrust and hostility as it seeks to forge closer ties with an organization [the Muslim Brotherhood] once viewed as irreconcilably opposed to United States interests.”
Any serious foreign policy analyst should see three red flags in this paragraph:
First, of course the U.S. government must deal with Egypt’s government but that doesn’t mean it should publicly proclaim that the Brotherhood is a nice group and give what amounts to an unconditional endorsement of it.
Indeed, the Obama Administration and media are using a cheap trick. They confuse the proper, responsible policy of dealing with those in power while doing something quite beyond that: a self-destructive policy of rushing to insist that sworn enemies of freedom and the United States are really nice guys and there’s no problem with having them in power.
As I’ve written before, it’s possible to elect a dictatorship. The Egyptian people have a right to do so but that doesn’t mean the West should like it.
Doesn’t anyone remember that the Obama Administration has been apologizing for all the bad regimes America supported in the past? Now Obama is using the exact same argument: claiming that we must be nice to them because they are in power. What’s the difference between that and the historic relationship to the Mubarak regime? At least Mubarak supported U.S. interests. These people don’t. They have openly supported murdering Americans, especially in Iraq!
In 1979 an Islamist revolution occurred in Iran. The United States quickly recognized that new regime and tried to be buddies with it. We all know how that worked out.
Second, why should the burden of reversing “decades of mistrust and hostility” be exclusively on the United States. Doesn’t the Brotherhood, which benefits from U.S. engagement, need to do that also or even beforehand? Why is there no conditionality here, no hint that the Obama Administration or New York Times understands how hostile the Brotherhood has been and continues to be? If the U.S. president won’t demand a quid pro quo (something in exchange for his concessions) who is going to look after U.S. interests?
Third, by saying the Brotherhood was “once viewed as irreconcilably opposed to United States interests” the author suggests this is no longer true. We know that the Obama Administration thinks the Brotherhood has changed. Yet there is no evidence in terms of deeds, ideology, or statement made in Arabic that the Brotherhood has done so.
Thus, Obama has given away all U.S. leverage and assets beforehand, just as he did by announcing a year ago, during the revolution’s opening days, that he would be happy to accept a Muslim Brotherhood government.
So the Brotherhood’s moderation is assumed. The science is settled; the debate is over.
“The reversal also reflects the administration’s growing acceptance of the Brotherhood’s repeated assurances that its lawmakers want to build a modern democracy that will respect individual freedoms, free markets and international commitments, including Egypt’s treaty with Israel.”
Wow, yes that’s it. The Obama Administration believes what the Brotherhood says and not what has been said by Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and others including many moderate Egyptians. No one has bothered to look at the actual radical record of Brotherhood lawmakers in the last parliament! Obama has chosen his friends and he’s on the wrong side.
(Continue reading article HERE)
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