The Brotherhood: America's Next Great Enemy Read Online Free PDF Page A

nowhere to be found. Just a week before, when Mubarak was still desperately clinging to power, al-Qaradawi’s presence in Cairo would have been unthinkable. But al-Qaradawi’s speech was proof that the Muslim Brotherhood, long the most organized, influential, and ruthless political movement in Egypt, was now firmly in the driver’s seat, and would take Egypt in a harshly Islamist direction.
    ■ In January 2012, Egypt held its first post-Mubarak parliamentary elections. Despite assurances from liberals in the press and academia as well as the State Department that Islamist parties would be marginalized and a secular consensus would emerge, the exact opposite happened—and in stunning, decisive fashion. The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party won 48 percent of the seats, while the al-Nour Party, an even more hardline Salafist faction, won 25 percent. Which meant Egypt’s parliament would now lie firmly in the hands of sharia-breathing, anti-Western, anti-Semitic Islamists, as voted on by the Egyptian people, as some of us had warned was inevitable. Ain’t Middle East “democracy” grand?
    ■ In April 2012, a delegation from the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party visited the White House to meet with Obama administration officials—during Easter week, no less. Then-Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor explained the White House visit by stating: “We believe that it is in the interest of the United States to engage with all parties that are committed to democratic principles, especially non-violence.” 21 Yes, he was talking about the Muslim Brotherhood.
    The Obama team’s view of the Brotherhood as a force for good—a view which flies in the face of reality, facts, and history—has been reflected in the administration’s policy of promoting the Islamist organization’s interests, not only in Egypt, but everywhere from Libya to Tunisia to Syria to right here in the United States. Indeed, the Obama administration’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood has gone a long way toward making the world’s first modern Islamic terrorist group mainstream, even as the MB pushes for a new, global Islamist superpower.
    ■ After months of Muslim Brotherhood officials repeatedly promising that they would not present a candidate for the Egyptian presidency, the MB’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) did exactly that. At first, the FJP offered Khairat el-Shater, a wily and charismatic Brotherhood veteran who has helped formulate much of the movement’s current game plan. When Egypt’s interim military government, flexing what was left of its waning influence (it also tried to dissolve the newly elected Islamist parliament), disqualified el-Shater as a candidate, the Brotherhood put Mohammed Morsi in his place. Morsi went on to win a narrow, controversial victory in the June 24, 2012, Egyptian presidential election. The rest, as we’ve seen, is Islamist history.
    ■ The idea that Egypt’s military could neutralize Morsi and the fledgling Islamist parliament suffered a severe setback on August 12, 2012, when Morsi forced the retirement of Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi—Egypt’s defense minister and a Mubarak-era power broker—as well as the army chief of staff and other senior generals. 22 It was a bold, unexpected move that stunned observers—but it shouldn’t have. Morsi and the Brothers were clearly playing for keeps and consolidating power quickly (on the same day as the sackings, Morsi also issued a declaration expanding his powers as president). The Egyptian military’s response to these developments was submissive silence—even after Morsi replaced Tantawi with General Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, a known Brotherhood sympathizer.
    The military’s lack of response did not surprise National Review Online’s Andrew McCarthy, who wrote:
    The Egyptian military is a reflection of Egyptian society which, as we have now seen in election after election, is dominated by Islamists. Indeed, despite the