Egypted Us

I'm confused. Granted, the Middle East is a muddled mess. But one thing seems crystal clear. The Muslim Brotherhood is a front for an anti-democracy, anti-Western, and anti-American terrorist movement.

(The Muslim Brotherhood) is not a legitimate political party. Its objects are not consistent with democracy or democratic goals. It is ... "a fascist political faction with murderous intent..." Its goal is the (re)establishment of an Islamic caliphate.

...although it claims to be non-violent, its motto describes “dying in the way of Allah” as the group’s highest hope.

So why is the president of the United States so intent on putting them back in power in Egypt?

...the U.S. has a president who apparently believes ... the Muslim Brotherhood's most famous political slogan, “Islam is the solution.”

On June 4, 2009, Obama gave his famous speech to the Islamic world, from Cairo ... The concept of addressing the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims this way, defining them as members of the Islamic community rather than citizens of their respective countries, is itself a Muslim supremacist idea. 

Tellingly, he invited the leaders of the banned Muslim Brotherhood to attend, where they sat in the front row. This effectively excluded his official host and America’s friend, President Hosni Mubarak, who pleaded ill health.

It also seemed to tell the Muslim Brotherhood, an anti-Western, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, anti-female and anti-gay group that spawned the ideology that created Al Qaeda, “You are the future.”

Fast forward to 2011. The Mubarak government was overthrown, and the Muslim Brotherhood played a major role in the new government. Their candidate, Mohamed Morsi, was elected as the new president.

In 2012 protests began against the Brotherhood's rule. In July 2013 the Egyptian military assumed control. Amid ongoing unrest, obama and his new Secretary of State, John Kerry, made their displeasure known.

(obama denounced) the “arbitrary arrests” of Muslim Brotherhood supporters and the “broad crackdown on Mr. Morsi’s associations and supporters” and then insisted “We don’t take sides with any particular party or political figure.”

Oh, really? Contrast that statement with the following.

This June, Kerry insisted that we had to keep providing aid to Egypt, despite Morsi’s abuses and lack of democracy, in order to maintain “a channel to Egyptian military leadership, who are key opinion makers in the country.”

But once Morsi was gone, the F-16s that had been the subject of such controversy, and that Obama had insisted on providing to Morsi, were denied to the Egyptian military. Obama was willing to provide advanced weapons to the Muslim Brotherhood, but not to the Egyptian military.

Obama demanded that the Egyptian military go easy on the Brotherhood protesters, but had made no such requests of Morsi. He repeatedly emphasized that foreign aid was on the line in his threats to the new Egyptian government, but had made no move to warn Morsi that foreign aid was linked to his treatment of the political opposition.

During the Morsi era, the administration insisted that human rights could not be linked to Egyptian military or civilian aid. After Morsi, suddenly the same officials were very interested in human rights.

That pattern of support for the Muslim Brotherhood at the expense of any opposition has been repeated throughout the Mid-East.

In Syria, Obama had made the decision to arm the Muslim Brotherhood dominated Free Syrian Army while disregarding its blatant ties to Al Qaeda.

In Libya, an Islamist militia linked to the Muslim Brotherhood had been paid to protect the Benghazi mission, which had been deprived of more conventional security and assistance.

While the protests against the Brotherhood were mounting in Egypt, in Libya the Muslim Brotherhood was orchestrating a wave of protests against the government. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood insisted on its right to power because it was the democratically elected government, while in Libya it was trying to overthrow a democratically elected government.

Obama created a set of favorable conditions that would allow the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists to take over country after country. When they couldn’t do it non-violently, he went to war, as he did in Libya. When he couldn’t go to war for them, he supplied them with weapons and training, as he did in Syria. When they were overthrown, he supported them to the hilt, as he is doing in Egypt.

The wave of terror spreading over the region has empowered Al Qaeda and endangered America, bringing no stability, only an endless conflict between the Muslim Brotherhood and everyone else.

One of the consequences of obama's bungled handling of the Egyptian situation is a loss of U.S. influence in the region.

The U.S.’s closest Middle East allies are undercutting American policy in Egypt, encouraging the military to confront the Muslim Brotherhood rather than reconcile, U.S. and Arab officials said.

The parallel efforts by Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have blunted U.S. influence with Egypt’s military leadership and underscored how the chaos there has pulled Israel into ever-closer alignment with those Gulf states, officials said.

A senior Israeli official called the anti-Muslim Brotherhood nations “the axis of reason.”

It's not just those countries that are taking advantage of the obama administration's dithering. Russia is moving in as well.

Vladimir Putin appears to be seizing on the Egyptian crisis and the U.S. response to it to expand Russia’s influence in the Arab world’s most populous country.

On Thursday afternoon President Barack Obama announced that the U.S. would be cancelling a joint military exercise with the Egyptian Army over its violent crackdown on supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Shortly afterwards, Egypt Independent reported that Putin had called an extraordinary session in the Kremlin to put “all Russian military facilities ‘at the Egyptian military's disposal.’" The report, which cited several sources without providing any further details about them, also said that “Putin will discuss Russian arrangements for joint-military exercises with the Egyptian army.”

So who cares? Why should we lose any sleep over more turmoil in a region that seems to consist of nothing but turmoil?

Well, Egypt controls the Suez Canal. That's vital for the deployment of our naval forces to the Persian Gulf (and elsewhere), as well as the shipment of several million of barrels of oil daily. And the Egypt-Israel peace accord is an anchor of stability in that volatile region.

If the Egyptian military comes out on top in the current conflict, as seems likely, Russia will have positioned itself to substantially expand its influence with Egypt, while the U.S. suffers a corresponding loss. And that may come back to haunt us at some point down the road.

Meanwhile, obama dithers on...