An excellent overview by former CIA agent Charles Faddis is at AND Magazine – Who Lost Egypt? Many of you may know this already, but it’s worth reviewing the history of the Muslim Brotherhood, poised to take control of the most populous Arab nation, even if the Obama Administration doesn’t.
To understand the implications of that for the United States and the world, we would do well to remember a little history. The Brotherhood is an overtly religious, that is to say Islamic, party. In the West, a party which calls for prayer to be allowed in schools or for a Nativity scene to be permitted in front of the court house may be branded as being threatening and reactionary. That is not what we mean when we say that the Brotherhood is “religious”.
The Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by an Egyptian schoolteacher and admirer of Adolf Hitler, Hasan al-Banna. The group was created in accordance with Banna’s belief that Islam should be granted “hegemony” in all matters of life. The Brotherhood was dedicated to the destruction of all non-Islamic governments wherever they existed and to making Islamic sharia law the basis for all jurisprudence everywhere on the planet. It gave birth in a very literal sense to Hamas and Al Qaeda.
There’s more at the link.
Who Lost Egypt?
Obama.
Obama lost Egypt despite all the Cairo syrup he poured on.
That is an urban myth. On Feb. 2, one week into the 18 day revolution, it was McCain who demanded Mubarak step down. That same day, Obama merely asked for Mubarak to not run for reelection. In truth, neither man had the power to affect the outcome in the least way.
On Feb.5, Obama was saying “He (Mubarak) needs to listen to what is being voiced by the Egyptian people, and make a judgment about a pathway forward that is orderly, but that is meaningful and serious.”
On that same day a three-way interview on CNN with David Gergen, Mona Eltahawy and Alan Dershowitz saw Eltahawy say the revolution had nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood and Dershowitz correctly predict what has happened.
You can’t control revolutions – that’s why we call them revolutions. Would the MB institute a Muslim dictatorship today if they could? Absolutely. Can they? No.
Even if the Egyptian army sat back and did nothing the salafis and MB together don’t have the grass roots to sustain a naked grab for power. You’ll have a civil war before it does.
There is no reason to compare Egypt to Iran. There are other polities in the middle east more conservative but Egypt is still deeply conservative when it comes to gays, women and Christians and whether the MB and salafis are in power or no, that won’t change. The MB and salafis weren’t voted in to enable more Islam, but because Islamists are a bulwark to protect Egypt from humanist secularists, and those are far different things. Egypt already was and still is, today, Muslim, and not a place a gay, woman or Christian can be President.
You make some excellent points, but I still think you are wrong. Obama encouraged this revolution against a reliable ally, Mubarak and in so doing sent the wrong signal to the Egyptian military. The MB will win out simply because they are the most organized and are unafraid to grab the power. They can and will call out tens of thousands of supporters to the streets if it becomes necessary. Just my opinion as is this, George Bush would have done what he could to support Mubarak. Mubarak is old and was on his way out, one way or another. But a smart President would have done his best to ensure an orderly and predictable change in status.
That is an excellent article in that it makes no predictions other than the suggestion of its title that Egypt could have been “won” in a sense from a Western point of view.
Although many have asserted this and blamed Obama it is telling that no one ever lays out a mechanism by which Egypt could’ve been won – a revolution prevented, a popular Muslim Brotherhood circumvented. That is because there is nothing America could have and still can do to prevent any thing in Egypt short of doing what it did in the first place, subverting democracy in Egypt in the name of stabilizing the region.
To do such a thing in Jan.2011 or now would require violence and martial law and a dictatorship. America would be further reviled.
And let me add another thing: are the Egyptians, salafis and MB so stupid they can’t see the handwriting on the wall in the West?
Imagine a Christian Egyptian President who comes out of a background of 20 years in a Muslim-hating church. That new Christian Egyptian President appoints another Muslim-hating Christian to be the Atty. Gen. of Egypt. That Atty. General immediately sets about to legally empower Christians and disempower Muslims. This Christian President sues the southernmost Egyptian governorate to allow a steady inflow of illegal Christian immigrants.
Throw in all the other political correct madness and it’s plain that we ourselves could be as much to blame for Muslims entrenching as their own medieval conservative values. The MB may be intolerent maniacs but they haven’t quite got to the point of putting a butcher’s knife to their own throats as has Europe, England, Canada, Australia and America.
Ayman al-Zawahiri used to be a member of the Muslim Brotherhood before he became part of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
Next they will be asking who lost Syria? No matter which side wins, we lose. Why take sides with misogynistic, homophobic jihadis against a brutal dictator?
“Who Lost Egypt?”
Egypt did. Willingly. They want to kill Jews more than they want to survive. That’s why they voted for the MB.
(After all, what’s a couple of mushroom clouds and 25-35 million dead Egyptians when you have to finish the work of your modern prophet, Adolf Hitler?)
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