Will Hamas be Next?
Jonathan S. Tobin
Commentary Magazine
6/30/2011
In a reversal of a five-year-old U.S. policy banning contact with the Muslim Brotherhood organization in Egypt, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has ordered American diplomats to resume contact with the Islamist group. Clinton made the following statement at a news conference in Budapest:
We believe, given the changing political landscape in Egypt, that it is in the interests of the United States to engage with all parties that are peaceful, and committed to non-violence, that intend to compete for the parliament and the presidency.
The resumption of formal contacts is a symbolic victory for the Brotherhood. It is also a signal to the Egyptian military the United States has no problem with the Brotherhood’s bid for more influence in the country, paving the way for a condominium between the army and the influential Islamist party.
While it can be argued the United States needs to be informed about the positions of all the major players in a key country such as Egypt, that could have been taken care of by private talks. Instead, the Obama administration has taken a critical step towards the acceptance of a militant anti-Western group as part of a future government of the most populous Arab nation.
The United States hopes democracy will change Egypt for the better and dealing with the Islamist party is just part of the price America must pay for this development. But the idea an ideology-driven group like the Brotherhood will allow itself to be transformed into a democratic partner for non-Islamist Egyptians as well as the United States is absurd…
The article continues at Commentary Magazine.
Related: Obama Admin Lists Israel as a Terror Sponsor and Frank Gaffney: Obama’s outreach to Muslim Brotherhood is ‘the tipping point’:
The Obama administration chose the eve of the holiday marking our Nation’s birth to acknowledge publicly behavior in which it has long been stealthily engaged to the United States’ extreme detriment: Its officials now admit that they are embracing the Muslim Brotherhood (MB or Ikhwan in Arabic). That would be the same international Islamist organization that has the destruction of the United States, Israel and all other parts of the Free World as its explicit objective…
