By Barry Rubin
Here is what I wrote in October 2010, when the leader of the Muslim
Brotherhood — Muhammad al-Badi — had just given a sermon calling for the
overthrow of Egypt’s government (which happened four months later) and a
jihad against the United States, a country he considered weak, foolish,
and in retreat from the Middle East:
[Al-Badi's sermon is] one of those obscure Middle East events of the utmost significance that is ignored by the Western mass media, especially because they happen in Arabic, not English; by Western governments, because they don’t fit their policies; and by experts, because they don’t mesh with their preconceptions.
Two and a half years ago, who would ever have thought that the United
States would enter an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood? There were
hints in President Barack Obama’s Cairo speech, yet now it is clear that
this is the new basis for regional security sought by the Obama
administration.
For all practical purposes the closest allies to the United
States are no longer Israel, Saudi Arabia, and a moderate Egypt, but an
Islamist Egypt, an Islamist regime in Turkey, and the Syrian rebels led
by the Brotherhood.
And literally every mainstream media outlet, every expert who speaks
in public, every Democrat, and the majority of Republican politicians still don’t realize that this is true.
American history has witnessed the Truman Doctrine (help countries
fight Communist takeover), the Nixon Doctrine (get local middle-sized
powers to take part of the burden of the Cold War from the United
States), the Carter Doctrine (defend Gulf Arab states from Iranian
aggression), and the Reagan Doctrine (go on the offensive against Soviet
expansionism).
Now, we have the Obama Doctrine: ally with the Muslim Brotherhood to transform the Middle East.
Is this an improvement on a strategy based on alliances with
pro-Western dictators? We are still working with dictators, but now they
are also anti-American and even more oppressive than their
predecessors. The old dictators, as horrible as they were, were content
with the status quo (except for Iraq, where the overthrow came without a
new extremist regime taking power), whereas the Islamist dictators want
the fundamental transformation of their societies. The old dictators
were resigned to the regional situation; the Islamist ones want a wave
of new revolutions, terrorism, wars against Israel.
And sooner or later they will strike out against America, just as they give their Salafist allies free rein to do so.
The occasion for declaring that an alliance with the Muslim
Brotherhood and similar groups is the new Obama Doctrine is, of course,
the decision to supply arms to the Syrian rebels. As recently as April 28 – a mere six weeks ago! — the New York Times
was talking of an imminent rebel victory. Now, panic has set in
regarding a total rebel collapse. This has prompted a rush to give
weapons to the rebels even as they seem to have stopped the government
advance without additional American weapons. In some parts of the
country the rebels are the ones advancing.
The weapons will be given to the Supreme Military Council, which runs
the Free Syrian Army (FSA). But while the FSA is nominally led by
defected military officers, most of its soldiers hold views closely
aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.
The fig leaf will be that these guns are being given to “moderates” —
like the people Senator John McCain met with. The truth is that they
will be given to people whose politics encompass hatred for Jews,
Christians, and the West generally, and who are ready to engage in what,
in American politics, has come to be known as homophobia and a War on
Women.
If the rebels were to win, this would mean imposing a Muslim
Brotherhood government on Syria. The Syrian political opposition
organization the United States recognizes and has financially supported
is overwhelmingly run by the Brotherhood, and it refuses to admit real moderates and Kurds on a serious level.
Note that this is the second Muslim Brotherhood entity the U.S.
government has provided with weapons. The first was the Egyptian
government, which — despite its questionable human rights record– the
Obama administration has no objection to helping. The shipment of
weapons was not even postponed as a gesture.
Egypt is an anti-American client state. And so is Tunisia. So, too,
is Turkey, which is sort of a Muslim Brotherhood regime in Turkish
style. (The Turkish regime, it should be remembered, is the chief
adviser to the Obama administration on Syrian affairs, and its favorite
government in the region.)
Why did Muslim Brotherhood-ruled Egypt endorse an American no-fly
zone in Syria? In Islamic terms, to invite an infidel power to “invade”
an Arab land cannot be justified by any Islamist, in contrast to a
non-Islamist Muslim-majority state. The Muslim Brotherhood can justify this support, however, because the goal of this action will be to install a Muslim Brotherhood government in Syria.
In four other places, U.S. policy is not — yet? — backing the Brotherhood.
– Because of pro-Israel sentiment in the United States, the Obama
administration is still anti-Hamas — the Muslim Brotherhood group which
rules the Gaza Strip. Hamas has also committed too many terrorist
attacks, and is in revolt against the U.S.-backed nationalist
Palestinian Authority.
In an unguarded moment, Obama’s then-counterterrorism adviser let
slip that he would engage Hamas if he thought he could get away with it.
But this would be too big a step for even pro-Obama Democrats to
accept. Besides, right now Hamas is in a conflict with Egypt, so that
doesn’t have to be addressed by the U.S. yet.
– In Jordan, the Obama administration still supports the monarchy,
though it often seems to do so only absent-mindedly. The Brotherhood,
which is the chief opposition group, wants to overthrow the king, but is
afraid — precisely because the regime is so south — to try violence.
Who knows what will happen, though, if Syria is ever taken over by the
rebels.
– In Lebanon, the leadership of the Sunni Muslims is pro-Western and
moderate. Radical Islamists are in a small minority. Both Sunni groups
hate Hizballah, which is of course the ally and now co-belligerent of
Iran and the Syrian regime. Still, there is no sign that the United
States is going to do anything on Hizballah’s home court.
It is somewhat ironic that the one place where the Sunni Muslim
leadership is most moderate is where Obama isn’t acting, even though
Hizballah (another force Brennan declared moderately not long ago) is
now a proven enemy beyond denial.
– The Obama administration has not yet supported the Muslim
Brotherhood against Israel. The strategy on this point is to get a
two-state peace agreement and thus defuse the issue. Of course, the
Islamists will not be satisfied with that result even if it happens,
which it won’t.
Why is the United States backing the Brotherhood in Syria? Most
immediately, it is being done in order to prevent an Iranian bloc
victory in Syria, even though the Brotherhood and al-Qaeda are on the
same side there. Except in Iraq, U.S. policy is backing the Sunnis over
the Shia.
Beyond that, however, the Obama administration has argued that
backing the Brotherhood is the best way to defeat al-Qaeda, which wants
to attack America directly. Obama has also claimed that the Brotherhood
will inevitably moderate — the same argument that was once heard about
Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Yasir Arafat, Ruhollah Khomeini, and Saddam
Hussein.
Are the Sunnis the lesser of two evils compared to Iran?
Arguably, yes. But that doesn’t mean that the Sunni Islamists are
better than the non-Islamists, who range from nationalist army officers
to traditionalist conservatives and pro-democratic liberals.
At any rate, the new policy is in place. America has had many
unlikely allies in its history, including Stalin and a number of Third
World dictators. But have any been such strange partners as those who
would like to kill all the Jews, wipe out Christianity, reduce women to
permanent second-class citizens, and murder gays?
Indeed, these are not only strange, but unnecessary and mistaken allies.
——————————————–
An interesting MEMRI piece gives an example of Sunni closing of ranks: Muslim
Brotherhood and chief Sunni Islamist guide Yusuf al-Qaradawi attacks
Hizballah (Islamist, but on the Shia side) and extols his friendship
with King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia (anti-Islamist but on the Sunni
side).
And here’s another Sunni Islamist, a Kuwaiti, wishing in a MEMRI video
that he could personally slit the throats of Hizballah soldiers. Why is
this significant? Because Kuwait has a lot of Shia with whom the Sunni
Islamists have worked pretty well. The new Sunni-Shia conflict may also
bitterly divide Kuwait.
What this all means is that the Sunni Islamist war against the Shia supersedes the Islamist war against the non-Islamists.
On demonstrations in Turkey, see this source: Turkish demonstrations for English-speakers.
http://tinyurl.com/mc7g3em
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