by Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n
FrontPage Magazine<\/em><\/p>\n Remember last year\u2019s giddy bipartisan enthusiasm over the \u201cArab Spring\u201d? President Obama claimed that Egyptians merely wanted \u201ca government that is fair and just and responsive,\u201d Senator John McCain asserted that Libyans were aiming for \u201clasting peace, dignity, and justice,\u201d while Senator Joseph Lieberman wrote in\u00a0Foreign Affairs<\/em>\u00a0that the Arab Spring was a struggle for \u201cdemocracy, dignity, economic opportunity, and involvement in the modern world.\u201d Every day that passes shows these assessments to be not just delusional, but dangerous to America\u2019s interests and security.<\/p>\n The most recent repudiation of the \u201cdemocracy delusion\u201d is the arrogant threat made by a member of the Muslim Brothers, who control almost 50% of the new Egyptian parliament, to abrogate their treaty with Israel if the US cuts off $1.5 billion in annual aid over the indictment of 16 American NGO workers, and the detention of 6 of them. In this the Brothers are in accord with the interim military government, whose prime minister Kamal el-Ganzouri told reporters last week that the Egyptians \u201cwon\u2019t change course because of some aid.\u201d<\/p>\n These are the same Muslim Brothers, remember, anointed as \u201cmoderates\u201d and \u201clargely secular\u201d by Obama\u2019s director of intelligence, foreign policy wonks, and\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0columnists, an opinion based solely on propaganda and wishful thinking. Ignored are the many mosque sermons that vow to \u201ckill all the Jews,\u201d or that assert, as Muslim Brothers spiritual leader Dr. Ahmed al-Tayeb has, \u201cIn order to build Egypt, we must be one. Politics is insufficient. Faith in Allah is the basis for everything.\u201d This advice is seconded by Brothers\u2019 Supreme Guide Muhammad al-Badi\u2019, who finds \u201ca practical role model in Allah\u2019s Messenger, [the Prophet Muhammad] . . . who clarified how to implement the values of the [Koran] and the Sunna at every time and in every place,\u201d and who advises that the \u201cimprovement and change that the [Muslim] nation seeks can only be attained through jihad and sacrifice and by raising a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life.\u201d If you want more specifics about what sort of Egypt the Muslim Brothers will build, consult the\u00a0speeches<\/a>\u00a0of the Brothers\u2019 Grand Mufti Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who commands a global audience of millions. Qaradawi has approved of suicide bombing, wife-beating, death for homosexuals, support for Hezbollah, and the righteousness of the Holocaust.<\/p>\n Not much here,\u00a0pace<\/em>\u00a0President Obama, that one can call \u201cfair and just and responsive,\u201d or that can justify the opinion of the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0that the Muslim Brothers \u201cwant to build a modern democracy that will respect individual freedoms, free markets and international commitments, including Egypt\u2019s treaty with Israel.\u201d And why would they? As their spectacular electoral success has shown \u2014 the Brothers and the Salafists won almost 75% of the recent voting \u2014 the Brothers merely reflect the beliefs and goals of most Egyptians. In Pew surveys from the last few years, 84% of Egyptians support the death penalty for apostates, 82% support stoning adulterers, 85% said Islam\u2019s influence on politics is positive, 95% said that it is good that Islam plays a large role in politics, 59% identified with Islamic fundamentalists, 54% favored gender segregation in the workplace, 82% favored stoning adulterers, 77% favored whippings and cutting off the hands of thieves and robbers, 84% favored death for those leaving Islam, and 60% said that laws should strictly follow the teachings of the Koran. Those views don\u2019t sound like a people yearning for liberal democracy.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not hard, then, to see why the Brothers would want to follow the Iranian playbook from 1979 and proclaim its Islamist\u00a0bona fides<\/em>\u00a0by publicly humiliating the infidel global hegemon, the \u201cGreat Satan\u201d whose dominance stands in the way of Muslims\u2019 regaining their rightful global preeminence. As Muslim Brother founder Hassan al-Banna wrote, \u201cIt is the nature of Islam to dominate not to be dominated, to impose its laws on all nations, extend its power to the entire planet.\u201d Confronting America also will help unify the nation around Sharia law, anti-Semitism, and anti-Americanism, not to mention marginalizing whatever moderate remnants are left in Egypt and rallying other factions around hatred of America. The Islamist revival has always made fidelity to the creed and Muslim chauvinism the centerpiece of jihadist violence and propaganda, the ties that can bind Muslims into a powerful community.<\/p>\n Less clear is the appeasing behavior of the Obama administration. It seems oblivious to the damaging effects on our prestige that can follow when we allow such threats to go unpunished, particularly when our citizens have in effect been kidnapped. And such craven behavior is especially dangerous when the aggressor has been the recipient of $60 billion in US aid. Now the message is not only you can attack American prestige with impunity, but also get paid to do so. What is equally unclear is why Obama would pursue this tack given the utter failure of his earlier solicitous \u201coutreach\u201d to various regimes in the Middle East, especially Iran and Syria. Obama entered office offering to talk with the mullahs in Iran \u201cwithout preconditions,\u201d sent a letter to Khamenei calling for \u201cco-operation in regional and bilateral relations,\u201d and assured the regime that it \u201cremain committed to serious, meaningful engagement.\u201d What it got in response was contempt, insults, genocidal threats against Israel, terrorist plots in our own country, more support for the terrorists killing our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and an intensified effort to acquire nuclear weapons. At some point Obama should realize that the Islamists see flattery, appeasement, foreign aid, and offers to parley as signs of weakness and fear, the expected behavior of infidels whose spiritual poverty makes them vulnerable to the spiritual strength of the faithful. And this perception of weakness is increasingly being shared not just by our enemies, but by many of our friends.<\/p>\n