Could this be the reason the Obama administration hasn’t said much about the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt?
Radical Islamist cleric and longtime Muslim Brotherhood spiritual guide Yusuf al-Qaradawi serves as a “key mediator in secret talks between the U.S. and the Taliban,” according to unnamed government sources referenced in a report published late Wednesday in The Hindu.
In early December, the report said, “Qaradawi helped draw a road map for a deal between the Taliban and the United States, aimed at giving the superpower a face-saving political settlement ahead of its planned withdrawal from Afghanistan.” The United States is expected to begin pulling out of Afghanistan in 2014.
The Qaradawi-brokered deal calls for significant American commitments, including “the release of prisoners still held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay, the lifting of United Nations sanctions on its leadership and its recognition as a legitimate political group.” In return, the Hindu‘s sources say, the Taliban would be “expected to sever its links to transnational organisations like al-Qaeda, end violence and eventually share power with the Afghan government.”
More at the link. Qaradawi isn’t just a run-of-the-mill Islamist. He is a major mind behind the effort to globalize sharia law. He also has a genocidal streak.
In January 2009, during a Friday sermon broadcast on Al-Jazeera, he prayed that Allah would kill all the Jews: “Oh Allah, take this oppressive, Jewish, Zionist band of people. Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one.” He also declared: “Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by [Adolf] Hitler.”
For all the talk that despite her boss’ antics Hillary Clinton has been a competent Secretary of State, outsourcing negotiations to the likes of Qaradawi would have had to have been approved by both her and the Secretary of Defense. If he is indeed party to any negotiations, his presence taints everyone involved.
Huma Abedin has a brother named Hassan Abedin who works at Oxford University.
What is significant is that Oxford University, which has long been infiltrated by Islamists who founded the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS), has Huma’s brother listed as a fellow and partners with a number of Muslim Brotherhood members on the Board, including al-Qaeda associate, Omar Naseef and the notorious Muslim Brotherhood leader Sheikh Youssef Qaradawi; both have been listed as OCIS Trustees. Naseef continues to serve as Board Chairman.
In 2009, Qaradawi’s role within Oxford and the Muslim Brotherhood was championed by the notorious Sheikh Rached Ghannouchi of Al-Nahda – a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate now active in Tunisia. OCIS has even presented an award for great scholarly achievement to Brotherhood member Shaykh Abd Al-Fattah Abu Gudda, whose personal history goes back to the Brotherhood’s founder, Hasan al-Banna.
(Even the Sunday Times acknowledges that the cradle of Islamic Jihad – Al-Azhar University – actively attempts to establish links with OCIS, where Huma’s brother serves.)
Part of this larger issue and problem is the lack of Arabic (or Pashtun) speaking Westerners and the massive amount, relatively speaking, of people within the Middle East, particularly those politically active, who speak English.
This limits Western options for both contacts and an understanding of the Middle East. Western TV shows are piped into the Middle East 24/7 but not the other way around and we wouldn’t understand them if they were.
From the outside looking in it is hard to say whether the Americans are dealing with this man through ignorance or as simply the right man for the job. I guess from that American point of view if they get what it is they want the fact the guy hates everyone is moot; another issue for another day.
These types of politics aren’t a game and there are terrible people involved and one can either talk to some of them as a nod to reality or just disdain the “taint” and bomb people forever. The idea that such negotiations have ever been done by moral people all around is kinda crazy.
We can’t use our own people. State Dept. isn’t competent, and this administration has contempt for all things military, which is where our expertise in Middle Eastern languages exists at this point.
Quaradawi issued one of the first fatwas against Sadat, and closed the circle, 30 years later, by issuing one against Quadaffi, He has blessed shaheeds in Baghdad, but not in his current bailiwick of Doha, those are facts ‘Johnny Jihad’
can’t dispute.
Hey I know, let’s send him to Syria! Then he’ll be a freedom fighter!
Yup, this is pretty much what happens when you lose a war.
I don’t know why everyone who writes for this site is so eager to start another one with Iran. Aren’t losing two of them in the Middle East enough of a blow to the US’s image?
Your type of foreign policy might work if we could actually win wars decisively. But we can’t.
You may be able to win a war, but you will fail at nation building, at least in Muslim countries. The project of spreading democracy there has failed.