Lipstick On A Pig - Whitewashing The Muslim Brotherhood

Having already lost Lebanon to Hezbollah, the Obama Administration is in the process of losing Egypt to the Islamist Salafists. And loving it.

The official line out of the White House now is that the Obama Administration has no problem with the Muslim Brotherhood governing Egypt - provided, as the Obama Administration put it, they 'reject violence and recognize democratic goals.'

That's exactly what the Obama Administration once said about Hezbollah.

Of course, the Muslim Brotherhood is no stranger to President Obama. During his infamous speech in Cairo, he insisted that Mubarak allow Muslim Brotherhood members to attend. And if the Telegraph is to be believed,the Obama Administration actually has encouraged anti-government forces covertly for quite some time.

The White House statement came today after US special envoy and ex-Ambassador to Egypt Frank Wisner met in the US embassy with opposition Mohammed Elbaradei and clandestinely, with Issam El-Erian, a senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Wisner also delivered the coup de grâce to Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarrak for Obama. After meeting with him, Mubarak announced on state television that he would not run in the coming September elections and would concentrate on what he called 'a peaceful transition of power' during the remainder of his term.I wouldn't bet money on him sticking around until September...or even lasting out the week.

The Obama White House's new embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood is quite similar to President Carter's embrace of Khomeini and 'democratic elements' overthrowing our ally the Shah in Iran. And it has been echoed by a number of the usual suspects on the Left, who proclaim loudly that we can work with the Ikhwan, that they're non-violent, and that after all, they're on the right side of democracy, aren't they?

'Non-violent' and 'democratic' is an interesting way to describe the Muslim Brotherhood, the chief inspiration of jihadists worldwide, including its 'Palestinian' branch, the Islamic Resistance Movement, better known as Hamas.

The founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna, and the movement's major philosopher and ideologue Sayyid Qutb are the intellectual inspiration behind al-Qaeda, Lashkar e Tiaba, Hizb al Tahrir,The Taliban, Jemayaah Islamiah,and virtually every violent Sunni Islamist group on the planet. And it was the 'non-violent' Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt that assassinated Egyptian prime minister Mahmud Nokrashi in 1948 for being too secular, and attempted to assassinate Egyptian strongman Gamal Nasser and launch an Islamist coup against his regime. More recently, the Brotherhood murdered Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981 for making peace with Israel, and made a number of attempts on King Hussein of Jordan's life.

After these episodes, the Brotherhood was vigorously suppressed in Egypt by both Nasser and Sadat's successor, Hosni Mubarak. Both occasions led to a large number of Ikhwan followers seeking refuge in countries like Saudi Arabia,Qatar, Kuwait and the Emirates.

They found refuge and welcome there, and the Brotherhood ideology merged seamlessly with wahabism and petro-dollars to create today's Islamist movement.

The Brotherhood, like the other jihadist groups favors a Global Islamic Caliphate ruled by sharia, Islam’s legal-political structure along the same lines that the Taliban ruled Afghanistan and Hamas rules Gaza,but they have taken Mohammed's words. "War is deception" to heart.

While they have no compunction in using violence to advance their agenda at a time of their own choosing, their official preferred model is is to undermine a society politically and socially first. However, they have no problem with more violent jihadists, and a number of Brotherhood adherents have played a prominent role in violent jihad. Sheikh Abdul Rahman of WTC bombing fame and al-Qaeda's Number Two Ayman Zawahiri both came out of the Ikhwan, among many others.

The Brotherhood's spiritual leader and co-founder, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, lives in Qatar and broadcasts his program, ash-Shariah wal-Hayat ("Shariah and Life") on Al Jazeera.During his career , al-Qaradawi has used the anti-Semitic forgery 'The Protocols of Zion' as an Islamist teaching tool, has voiced enthusiastic support for terrorist homicide bombings in Israel, referred to the Holocaust as a punishment Allah imposed on Jews to punish them for their corruption and expressed hope that 'Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers'.He also considers Jewish pregnant women and their unborn babies to be valid targets on the ground that the babies could grow up to join the Israeli Army.

He also favors wife beating and death for homosexuals.

Brotherhood “Supreme Guide” Muhammad Mahdi Akef has referred to Osama bin-Laden as a mujahadeen, or freedom fighter and as “close to Allah on high.” And he is hardly alone in this assessment.Nor will any Brotherhood figure condemn the genocidal agenda of its Palestinian branch, Hamas, in the slightest.

So with all of this, including good examples in Gaza and Afghanistan on exactly what Muslim Brotherhood-style rule looks like, one has to wonder why the Obama Administration would be so open to working with them and why so many Left wing journalists seem to be so willing to give the Ikhwan a pass.

In some cases, its simple denial.Foreign policy establishment types have long felt that he US can 'engage' with such people as rational actors in Western terms, and not matter how often that leads to epic failure, there are apparently some people who never quite get it. For others, it's simply easier not to contemplate what dealing with Islamists in a decisive fashion would really entail, which has essentially been our problem since 9/11. Some may simply like the feel-good rush of supporting what appears to be a populist revolution..no matter what that ultimately means.

Whatever the reason, they're going to have to end the denial sooner or later.There's no question that even if the army re-establishes control, the Muslim Brotherhood is going to be a significant force in the new order of things. Most observers feel like the Muslim Brotherhood would win an honest election in Egypt, or at least do well enough to command a significant number of ministries. Next to the army, the Brotherhood is the best organized institution in Egypt.

So at best, we're looking at an increasingly Islamist pro-Hamas regime like Turkey. At worst, it's Hamas-style rule. Either way, the Egyptian /Israeli peace treaty - which was always just an armistice - is history. Anyone who doubts that ought to take a peek at the latest Pew poll on Egyptian attitudes to subjects like fundamentalist Islamism, Israel,the US and terrorism.

Any way you look at it, any laudatory self-delusion now going on in the White House and with their allies in the media about democracy and the Muslim Brotherhood is in for a rude awakening.

There simply is no way to put lipstick on this pig and pretend it's something its not.

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