”Don’t
scare anyone. But once you gain ground then move ahead. You must
utilize as many people as possible who may be of use to us.”
–Joseph Stalin to future Communist dictator of Hungary Mattyas Rakosi, December 5, 1944.
It really isn't too hard to understand what is happening in the Middle East if you watch the facts.
1.
Jordan's King Abdallah, who President Barack Obama just visited, is
clearly telling us what's going
wrong: that the Muslim Brotherhood is dangerous and so why is the
United States supporting it? Presumably, this is what Abdallah told
Obama.
2.
U.S. policy is now escalating support for a Muslim Brotherhood regime
in Syria and the Syrian rebels increasingly have open Brotherhood
leadership.
3. Repression is gradually escalating in Egypt with arrests of
moderates, Islamists being sent to the military academy, and many more measures.
Regarding Jordan, Jeffrey Goldberg's has done an extremely valuable profile of Abdullah.
The Jordanian monarch is telling Western visitors that their countries
are making a big mistake by supporting the Islamists. He complains that
the U.S. State Department is ignoring his complaints and that U.S.
officials are telling him, “The
only way you can have democracy is through the Muslim Brotherhood.”
He
responds that the Brotherhood wants to impose anti-American reactionary
governments and that his "major fight" is to stop them. No margin may
be left for relative moderate and pro-American states between a Sunni
Islamist alliance led by Egypt and including Turkey versus a Shia
Islamist alliance led by Iran says Abdallah and he's right. The only
difference, Abdallah explains, between the Turkish and Egyptian regimes
are their timetables for installing dictatorships. Egypt's new
president, says the king, is obsessed with a hostile view of Israel.
Meanwhile,
while President Barack Obama was love-bombing Israel during his visit,
U.S. policy was helping to install a Muslim Brotherhood supporter as the
putative next leader of Syria. Obama’s strategy is, with appropriate
adjustments to the national scene, the same as his disastrous policy in
Egypt.
The new leader of the opposition coalition is Ghassan Hitto, an obscure figure who has
been long-resident in the United States. His actual election contained two hints:
--He
only received 35 votes from 63 members of the Syrian National
Coalition. That show of support matches the number of Muslim
Brotherhood’s supporters there.
--Only 48 out of the 63 even cast a ballot at all, showing lack of enthusiasm and possible U.S. pressure on
groups to abstain rather than oppose Hitto.
During
the Cold War, American policy toward Third World countries frequently
looked for a “third way” democratic alternative, leaders who were
neither Communists nor right-wing authoritarians. Today, however, the
Obama Administration doesn’t do the equivalent at all, despite pretenses
to the contrary. Rather it seeks leadership from the most seemingly
moderate people who represent Islamist groups. Of course, this
moderation is largely deceptive.
That
was the pattern in Egypt; now it is the same failed strategy in Syria.
Hitto is a typical example of such a person. He has lived in the United
States and went to university there, so presumably knows America and
has become more moderate by living there. He is involved in hi-tech
enterprises so supposedly he is a modern type of guy. Remember how
now-dictator of Syria Bashar al-Assad was lavishly praised because he
studied and lived in London and was supposedly interested in Internet?
In
addition, nobody
has (yet) come up with an outrageous Hitto statement. His ties to the
Brotherhood are not so blatant—even though they are obvious—that the
Obama Administration and the mass media cannot deny and ignore them.
Yet
the connections between Hitto and the Muslim Brotherhood—and those are
only the ones documented quickly following his election—are extensive.
--He is founder of the Muslim Legal Fund of America, largely directed by Muslim Brotherhood people..
--He
was a secretary-treasurer of the American Middle Eastern League for
Palestine (AMELP), which is closely linked to the Islamic Association of
Palestine (IAP), which supports Hamas and terrorism against Israel.
--Hitto
was vice president of the CAIR Dallas/Fort Worth chapter and director
of the Muslim American Society (MAS) Youth Center of Dallas which was a
Muslim Brotherhood front
group.
The list goes on and on.
As if to sum up the situation, Hassan Hassan of the United Arab Emirates newspaper The National, wrote an article entitled “How the Muslim Brotherhood Hijacked Syria’s Revolution.”
Professor Barry Rubin, Director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center http://www.gloria-center.org
The Rubin Report blog http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/
He is a featured columnist at PJM http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/.
Editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal http://www.gloria-center.org
Editor Turkish Studies,http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=t713636933%22
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