Hillary Clinton bekreftet fredag at amerikanske diplomater har utvidet kontakten med Det muslimske brorskap i Egypt.
Tidligere har man snakket med medlemmer av parlamentet man visste tilhørte Brorskapet. Nå utvides kontakten til å gjelde Brorskapets ledere.
Clinton viser i sine uttalelser til pressen et visst ubehag. Brorskapets skyggesider tones ned eller oversees. Det samme gjelder Reuters omtale av bevegelsen. Brorskapet er i ferd med å bli en “partner”, og da kan man ikke skyve dem fra seg.
“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,” Clinton told reporters at a news conference.
“Now in any of those contacts, prior or future, we will continue to emphasize the importance of and support for democratic principles and especially a commitment to non-violence, respect for minority rights, and the full inclusion of women in any democracy,” she added.
Clinton would not say whether the Obama administration had already begun such contacts or at what level it planned to deal with the group.
On Wednesday, a senior U.S. official disclosed the decision to Reuters, saying that where U.S. diplomats previously dealt only with group members in their role as parliamentarians, a policy he said had been in place since 2006, they will now deal directly with Brotherhood officials.
Barry Rubin mener både Reuters og Clinton tildekker hva det handler om, hva Brorskapet står for. Denne tildekkingen er i seg selv et dårlig signal, for hvis man lukker øynene for Brorskapets farlige sider, kan de overta. Det er god grunn til å anta at Brorskapet fortsatt ønsker en islamistisk stat.
Reuters portrays the Brotherhood, as do many, as “a group founded in 1928 that seeks to promote its conservative vision of Islam in society.” Conservative? You mean they are like the Republican Party? You mean they are for the status quo? And of course one of the things they did since 1928 was to ally with Nazi Germany, and the Brotherhood continues to voice the same political line toward Jews that it did back then
We are also told that the Brotherhood “long ago renounced violence as a means to achieve political change in Egypt….” This is simply not true. The Brotherhood merely temporarily renounced violence within Egypt because they knew that any resort to it would get them wiped out by the regime and the army. They postponed using violence until the revolutionary era arrived. Of course, if they can take over Egypt without violence they are happy to do so.
But there’s more. Every day for decades the Brotherhood has supported violence against Israel. It has supported violence against Americans in Iraq, and on various other fronts. Why is this so hard to see?
Rubin kritiserer Reuters for kun å gjøre dette til en sak for Israel, jøder og deres forsvarere. Det er riktig at Brorskapet konsekvent har vært Israel-fiendtlig. Men Brorskapet truer da flere enn jøder og Israel?
Reuters og Clinton later som om Brorskapet er klar til å spille etter parlamentariske regler, men det vet vi ikke, og vi vet ikke hva de vil gjøre hvis de får makt.
So we just can’t tell if the Muslim Brotherhood wants a radical Islamist state before it takes power. Just like it was presumably a mystery about what Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini wanted to do in Iran, the Taliban in Afghanistan, Hizballah in Lebanon, and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Risikoen er at Obama-administrasjonen kan komme til å legitimere Brorskapets deltakelse og innflytelse, hvis ikke motforestillingene og reservasjonene hele tiden fremføres. USA kan bli døråpner for et islamistisk Egypt med de konsekvensene det høyst sannsynlig vil få, feks for kristne.
And finally the article doesn’t even mention the most important development in U.S.-Muslim Brotherhood relations during that group’s eighty-year history: President Barack Obama’s explicit (and uninvited) statement accepting the Brotherhood being in government. U.S. policy is paving the way for a radical, possibly Islamist, Egypt. It is a catastrophic strategy.
U.S. shifts to closer contact with Egypt Islamists
A Major U.S. Policy Shift Toward the Muslim Brotherhood Disguised
