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President Biden and the Muslim Brotherhood Trap

Experienced Counsel

President Biden is about to reembrace the Muslim Brotherhood – in the mold of the Obama/Biden Administration – in defiance of all pro-US Arab countries, which consider the Muslim Brotherhood a clear and present, existential terrorist threat.

President Biden may benefit from the following advice, provided by Sir John Jenkins, a top British specialist on the Muslim Brotherhood, political Islamism and the Middle East, and former Executive Director of the British International Institute for Strategic Studies – Middle East branch: “[The West] should resist the temptation to seek to understand the Muslim Brotherhood through our own cultural or epistemological [knowledge] categories…. [Jenkins cautions against] viewing the world through lenses ground by an exclusivist Western modernity, shaped in the distorting crucible of European nationalism….

“Islamism – to which the Muslim Brotherhood is central – like other totalizing, anti-rational and authoritarian ideologies is a profound ideological challenge to the modern Western conception of the rational state and its foundational principles….”

Engaging or Confronting the Muslim Brotherhood?

Will President Biden’s foreign policy and national security team – led by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, CIA Director William Burns and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines – heed Sir Jenkins’ counsel?

Moreover, will they recognize the centrality of the Muslim Brotherhood’s track record and its core ideology, which highlight the grand design of establishing a universal, non-corrupt Islamic society; replacing Western global domination and submitting itself to Allah and the Quran, while rejecting/toppling all national (Muslim and non-Muslim) regimes via politics, violence and martyrdom?

Hence, the Muslim Brotherhood’s political and terroristic efforts to topple the regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Morocco, Jordan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, etc.

However, the Muslim Brotherhood has been very skillful in obfuscating the West through its two-pronged operation: the political screensaver and the operational (subversive and terroristic) engine. The latter determines the strategic vision and its execution, while the former facilitates diplomacy, politics and fundraising.

Yet, President Biden’s policy-makers contend that Islamic terrorism is generally driven by despair, and that the Muslim Brotherhood and its multitude of Islamic organizations are non-violent, political in nature and seeking justice, human rights and freedom.

This policy is articulated in a document, published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which reflects the State Department worldview, and was headed until recently by CIA Director William Burns.

Biden Team’s Track Record

The 2021 policy towards the Muslim Brotherhood is consistent with President Carter’s 1978/79 policy towards the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini, who was perceived as a peaceful political dissident, oppressed by the Shah of Iran. This facilitated the Ayatollahs’ rise to power, stabbed the pro-US Shah in the back, and transformed Iran into a global epicenter of anti-Western and anti-Sunni terrorism and a proliferator of non-conventional military technologies.

This worldview has led the Biden team to assume that Iran’s Ayatollahs – irrespective of their consistently ruthless track record – are credible negotiators; potential partners for peaceful-coexistence and influence-sharing with their Sunni Arab neighbors; amenable to ending domestic repression and disavowing their fanatical, megalomaniacal, religious vision. Furthermore, the Biden team assumes that waiving the US military option constitutes a prerequisite to constructive negotiation with the rogue Ayatollahs.

President Biden’s team played a key role in the initiation and formulation of the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran (JCPOA). In 2021, it aspires to rejoin the accord with some modifications.

The same team co-led the 2009 embrace of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, while abandoning the pro-US Mubarak on the grounds of the latter’s poor record in the areas of human rights and democracy.  This provided a tailwind to the Muslim Brotherhood’s subversion throughout the region – supported mostly by Turkey’s Erdogan and Qatar – and eroded US credibility and its posture of deterrence among all pro-US Arab regimes. In 2021, the Biden team seems to adhere to the same policy, serving Egyptian President Sisi notice because of human rights violations, while courting the Muslim Brotherhood.

The human rights-driven policy towards the Muslim Brotherhood was at the core of the 2011 US-led military offensive against Libya’s Qadhafi, which was actively supported by the current Biden team. It led to the disintegration of Libya, and dramatically worse violations of human rights, along with the transformation of Libya into a platform of civil wars and global Islamic terrorism.

Middle East Reality Revisited

According to Sir John Jenkins (ibid), “[The Muslim Brotherhood] continues to threaten the constitutive basis of most contemporary Muslim majority states…. Islamists are revolutionary in a fundamental sense of the word. And the history of the modern Middle East tells us that revolutions destroy. Some may still be tempted to hope that when a malign or otherwise unsatisfactory regime is overthrown the subsequent trajectory must be progressive. [Middle East] experience suggests the reverse. As Hannah Arendt said nearly 50 years ago, “The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is to a more violent world.” Authoritarianism is not weakened in such circumstances: it recurs….

“The Muslim Brotherhood, the first and foundational mass movement of mobilized Islamism, launched by Hassan Al Banna in the Egyptian provincial city of Ismailiyya in March 1928…. Al Banna may initially have conceived of Jihad as primarily one of social transformation through preaching and persuasion. But, he soon came to promote ‘fann al mawt’ – ‘the art of death.’

“He urged his followers to scorn life; claimed that ultimate martyrdom could only be attained through death in the service of the divine; articulated a doctrine of armed physical force; contemplated a frontal attack on power; and allowed the creation of a paramilitary force and violent attacks – including assassinations – against the Egyptian government…. On top of this, the writings of Sayyid Qutb – its most significant and protean ideologue – remain central to Brotherhood thinking everywhere and continue to be used to justify multiple forms of Islamist violence.

“More generally, [the Muslim Brotherhood’s] Political Islamism… rejects most existing political systems as un-Islamic. It seeks to replace the secular with a new Islamized order nationally and internationally. The Brotherhood… gives little space to the tolerance, choice and individual freedoms we claim to value. It has no commitment to democratic choice as the fundamental expression of a political community. It rejects what we consider to be the self-evident legal equality of individuals regardless of gender or religion. It is constitutively antisemitic and homophobic; its approach to education and societal cohesion is unlikely to promote inclusivity; it seeks power first….”

Will President Biden and his national security and foreign policy team leverage – or disregard – Sir Jenkins’ unique analysis of the Middle East, in general, and the Muslim Brotherhood, in particular?

Will they persist in their attempt to subordinate the intrinsically perfidious, despotic, intolerant, violent and unpredictable Middle East to noble core Western values?

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The Abraham Accords – the US, Arab interests and Israel

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan believe that the expansion of the Abraham Accords, the enhancement of Israel-Saudi defense and commercial cooperation and the conclusion of an Israel-Saudi Arabia peace accord are preconditioned upon major Israeli concessions to the Palestinian Authority.

Is such a belief consistent with Middle East reality?

Arab interests

*The signing of the Abraham Accords, and the role played by Saudi Arabia as a critical engine of the accords, were driven by the national security, economic and diplomatic interests of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and the Sudan.

*The Arab interest in peace accords with Israel was not triggered by the realization that the Jewish State was genuinely seeking peaceful-coexistence, nor by a departure from the fundamental tenets of Islam. It was motivated by the assessment that critical concerns of the respective Arab countries would be effectively-served by Israel’s advanced military (Qualitative Military Edge), technological and diplomatic capabilities in the face of mutual and lethal enemies, such as Iran’s Ayatollahs and Muslim Brotherhood terrorism.

*Saudi Arabia and the six Arab peace partners of Israel (including Egypt and Jordan) are aware that the Middle East resembles a volcano, which occasionally releases explosive lava – domestically and/or regionally – in an unpredictable manner, as evidenced by the 1,400-year-old stormy intra-Arab/Muslim relations, and recently demonstrated by the Arab Tsunami, which erupted in 2011 and still rages.

They wish to minimize the impact of rogue regimes, and therefore are apprehensive about the nature of the proposed Palestinian state, in view of the rogue Palestinian inter-Arab track record, which has transformed Palestinians into an intra-Arab role model of subversion, terrorism, treachery and ingratitude.

*They are anxious about the erosion of the US posture of deterrence, which is their most critical component of national security, and alarmed about the 43-year-old US diplomatic option toward Iran’s Ayatollahs, which has bolstered the Ayatollahs’ terroristic, drug trafficking and ballistic capabilities. They are also concerned about the US’ embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the largest Sunni terrorist entity with religious, educational, welfare and political branches. And, they are aware of the ineffectiveness of NATO (No Action Talk Only?), the European vacillation, and the vulnerability of all other Arab countries.

Israel’s role

*Saudi Arabia and the Arab partners to peace accords with Israel feel the machetes of the Ayatollahs and the Moslem Brotherhood at their throats. They consider Israel as the most reliable “life insurance agent” in the region.  They view Israel as the most effective US force-multiplier in the Middle East, and appreciate Israel’s proven posture of deterrence; flexing its military muscles against Iran’s Ayatollahs in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran itself and against Palestinian and Hezbollah terrorism. They respect Israel’s unique counter-terrorism intelligence and training capabilities, and its game-changing military and counter-terrorism battle tactics and technologies.

*The Arab view of Israel as a reliable partner on “a rainy day” has been bolstered by Israel’s willingness to defy US pressure, when it comes to Israel’s most critical national security and historic credos (e.g., Iran, Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria).  In addition, Saudi Arabia and Israel’s peace-partners aim to leverage Israel’s good-standing among most Americans – and therefore among most Senators and House Representatives – as a venue to enhance their military, commercial and diplomatic ties with the US.

*Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are preoccupied with the challenge of economic diversification, realizing that they are overly-reliant on oil and natural gas, which are exposed to price-volatility, depletion and could be replaced by emerging cleaner and more cost-effective energy.

Thus, they consider Israel’s ground-breaking technologies as a most effective vehicle to diversify their economy, create more jobs in non-energy sectors, and establish a base for alternative sources of national income, while bolstering homeland and national security.

*The Abraham Accords – as well as Israel’s peace accords with Egypt and Jordan – and the unprecedented expansion of defense and commercial cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Israel, demonstrate that critical Arab national security interests may supersede fundamental tenets of Islam, such as the 1,400-year-old rejection of any “infidel” sovereignty in “the abode of Islam.”  Moreover, critical national security interests may lead to a dramatic moderation of the (Arab) education system, which is the most authentic reflection of one’s vision and policies.

Thus, contrary to the Palestinian Authority, the United Arab Emirates has uprooted hate-education curriculum, replacing it with pro-Israel/Jewish curriculum.

Abraham Accords’ durability

*The success of the Abraham Accords was a result of avoiding the systematic mistakes committed by the US State Department. The latter has produced a litany of failed peace proposals, centered on the Palestinian issue, while the Abraham accords bypassed the Palestinian issue, avoiding a Palestinian veto, and focusing on Arab interests. Therefore, the durability of the Abraham Accords depends on the interests of the respective Arab countries, and not on the Palestinian issue, which is not a top priority for any Arab country.

*The durability of the Abraham Accords depends on the stability of the individual Arab countries and the Middle East at-large.

*The Abraham Accord have yielded initial and unprecedented signs of moderation, modernity and peaceful coexistence, which requires the US to support the respective pro-US Arab regimes, rather than pressuring them (e.g., Saudi Arabia and the UAE).

*However, one should not ignore the grave threats to the durability of the accords, posed by the volcanic nature of the unstable, highly-fragmented, unpredictable, violently intolerant, non-democratic and tenuous Middle East (as related to intra-Arab relations!).  These inherent threats would be dramatically alleviated by a resolute US support.

*A major threat to the Abraham Accord is the tenuous nature of most Arab regimes in the Middle East, which yields tenuous policies and tenuous accords. For example, in addition to the Arab Tsunami of 2010 (which is still raging on the Arab Street), non-ballot regime-change occurred (with a dramatic change of policy) in Egypt (2013, 2012, 1952), Iran (1979, 1953), Iraq (2003, 1968, 1963-twice, 1958), Libya (2011, 1969), Yemen (a civil war since the ’90s, 1990, 1962), etc.

*Regional stability, the Abraham Accords and US interests would be undermined by the proposed Palestinian state west of the Jordan River (bearing in mind the intra-Arab Palestinian track record). It would topple the pro-US Hashemite regime east of the River; transforming Jordan into another platform of regional and global Islamic terrorism, similar to Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen; triggering a domino scenario, which would threaten every pro-US Arab oil-producing country in the Arabian Peninsula; yielding a robust tailwind to Iran’s Ayatollahs, Russia and China and a major headwind to the US.

*While Middle East reality defines policies and accords as variable components of national security, the topography and geography of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and the Golan Heights are fixed components of Israel’s minimal security requirements in the reality of the non-Western Middle East. Israel’s fixed components of national security have secured its survival, and have dramatically enhanced its posture of deterrence. They transformed the Jewish State into a unique force and dollar multiplier for the US.

*The more durable the Abraham Accords and the more robust Israel’s posture of deterrence, the more stable the pro-US Arab regimes and the Middle East at-large; the more deterred are anti-US rogue regimes; the less potent are Middle Eastern epicenters of anti-US terrorism and drug trafficking; the more bolstered is the US global posture and the weaker is the posture of the US’ enemies and adversaries.

*Would the Arab regimes of the Abraham Accords precondition their critical ties with Israel upon Israeli concessions to the Palestinians, which they view as a rogue element? Would they sacrifice their national security and economic interests on the altar of the Palestinian issue? Would they cut off their nose to spite their face?

The fact that these Arab regimes concluded the Abraham Accords without preconditioning it upon Israeli concessions to the Palestinians, and that they limit their support of the Palestinians to talk, rather than walk, provides an answer to these three questions.

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