MELANIE PHILLIPS:THE BROTHERHOOD IS AT WAR WITH AMERICA…WHAT D.C. FAILS TO GRASP
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/6664620/denial-is-a-river-in-dc.thtml
It is still possible that the military will stabilise the situation in Egypt and defuse the revolt, keeping the Muslim Brotherhood out of office. Whether or not that happens, the astonishing fact is that the Obama administration has said it will accept the Brotherhood in Egypt’s government. Rub your eyes. The Brotherhood is at war with America – and is furthermore, through Hamas, in something resembling a kind of Molotov/Ribbentrop-style alliance with Iran (even though they also hate Iran), which is at war with America.
The Obamites are in effect offering up America’s throat to be cut – cheered on, of course, by the western left, who are representing the Brotherhood as the poster-boys of Middle East democracy. But if the Brothers do gain power in Egypt, freedom will take a huge stride even further backwards. As in Iran after the 1979 revolution, the Egyptians would come to look back nostalgically to the days of Mubarak from the agonies of the Islamist oppression that would have enslaved them. As the ever astute Muqata put it the other day:
Assuming the Egyptian people actually had a choice at this point, what options do they really have to select from? At present, their choice is like having to choose between the Nazis or Stalin – between the Islamic fundamentalists of the Moslem Brotherhood vs. the iron-fisted dictator Mubarak. Not a great option in either case for the Egyptian people.
Indeed. And now just consider the quite hallucinatory hypocrisy of the western left: the very people who are now condemning the US for having supported Mubarak without demanding that he introduce democracy and human rights are endorsing the Muslim Brotherhood – who rule out democracy and human rights as an offence against Islam and rule by God.
Here’s how the Islamic terrorism expert Steve Emerson describes the absurdity of the Pollyanna-ish view of the Brotherhood peddled by people like the Brookings Institute:
That view glosses over the Brotherhood’s core fundamentalist attitude that could subject women and Egypt’s religious minorities to second-class status, threaten the 30-year peace between Egypt and Israel, and benefit terrorist groups including Hizballah and Hamas, a group created by the Brotherhood to carry out terrorist violence against Israel.
This belief was made clear in August during a sermon by Brotherhood General Guide Mohammed Badie. ‘The Zionists, the West and the lackey rulers conspired together. If the Muslim Brotherhood had remained in the field, the Zionist Entity would not have stood nor its flag raised,’ he said.
Brotherhood power in Egypt ‘would be calamitous for U.S. security,’ counters Council on Foreign Relations President Emeritus Leslie Gelb. ‘What’s more, their current defenders don’t really argue that point, as much as they seem to dismiss it as not important or something we can live with. The MB supports Hamas and other terrorist groups, makes friendly noises to Iranian dictators and torturers, would be uncertain landlords of the critical Suez Canal, and opposes the Egyptian-Israeli agreement of 1979, widely regarded as the foundation of peace in the Mideast. Above all, the MB would endanger counterterrorism efforts in the region and worldwide. That is a very big deal.’
One reason why people like Brookings subscribe to this absurdly sanguine view of the Bro0thers has been the campaign to promote them mounted by two dangerously subversive organisations, Forward Thinking and Conflicts Forum. I wrote here, here and here about the inroads that these groups – of which Forward Thinking, being ostensibly the less extreme, was the more deadly – were making into British and American diplomatic and defence circles which were only too eager to swallow their nonsense about the ‘moderate’ jihadis of the Brotherhood, Hamas and Hezbollah. And now we can see the result: the twisted and idiotic thinking about the Brotherhood which passes for intelligence in American and British policy circles.
Apologies for overloading readers with yet another reference to Prof Barry Rubin of the GLORIA Centre, but he is currently furnishing essential reading about Egypt and this is perhaps his most important post yet on the subject. Here’s a flavour:
It is not inevitable that the Muslim Brotherhood will take over. Even the Brotherhood doesn’t want that in the near future. It is far more likely, though, that Egypt would become a radical, anti-American state perhaps with some restraint (see point 1, below). The army will play a critical role one way or the other.
But nobody should neglect the reality of public opinion. Here’s a report direct from the massive demonstration in Cairo today by a friend interviewing people there: Demonstrators in Tahrir Square are increasingly saying this is not a fight against Mubarak. This is a fight against Israel and the United States whose interests he’s implementing.
… The White House spokesman on January 31 said the United States would accept the Muslim Brotherhood in government if it rejected violence and recognizes ‘democratic goals.’ Funny, that was the U.S. government position on Hizballah (which now rules Lebanon) and Hamas (which now rules the Gaza Strip). How did that work out?
What does ‘violence’ mean? They won’t need to use violence against the government if they control the government! They will advocate violence against U.S. forces in Iraq, against Israel, and to overthrow the remaining (they seem to be shrinking in number) relatively moderate regimes. Hamas–but not Hizballah–terrorists will be trained at camps in Egypt. The Egypt-Gaza border will be open and weapons will flow steadily every day.
Then, of course, it will be too late. The same people who set or backed this U.S. policy will say that the United States must now recognize reality and accept the regime unconditionally.
Read it all.
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