Author: Frank Gaffney, Jr.
Publication: Center for Security Policy.org
Date: Jan 31, 2011
URL: http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p18634.xml?media=print
As Egypt lurches towards the end of Hosni
Mubarak's regime, one way or another - by "an orderly transition to democratic
rule" (as Hillary Clinton delicately puts it), through violent overthrow
or simply through the demise of the ailing 82-year-old president - much is
unclear. One thing that should not be is that the Muslim Brotherhood is our
enemy, and whatever role it plays in Egypt's future will be to our detriment.
Such clarity is readily available since the
Brotherhood (MB or in Arabic, Ikhwan) has told us as much. Consider, for example,
the mission statement for the MB found in one of its secret documents entitled
"An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group
in North America":
The Ikhwan must understand that their work
in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western
civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands
and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion
is made victorious over all other religions.
As a blue-ribbon group of national security
experts convened by the Center for Security Policy, "Team B II"
noted in their new best-seller Shariah: The Threat to America, the incompatability
of the Ikhwan's agenda with our interests has been evident from its inception:
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt
in 1928. Its express purpose was two-fold: (1) to implement shariah worldwide,
and (2) to re-establish the global Islamic State (caliphate). Therefore, al
Qaeda and the MB have the same objectives. They differ only in the timing
and tactics involved in realizing them.
We also know how the Brotherhood plans to
pull off our destruction. Another MB document, this one undated, is called
"Phases of the World Underground Movement Plan." It describes a
five-installment program for achieving the triumph of shariah - together with
a status report on the realization of several of the phases' goals:
Phase One: Discreet and secret establishment
of leadership.
Phase Two: Phase of gradual appearance on
the public scene and exercising and utilizing various public activities. It
[the MB] greatly succeeded in implementing this stage. It also succeeded in
achieving a great deal of its important goals, such as infiltrating various
sectors of the Government.
Phase Three: Escalation phase, prior to conflict
and confrontation with the rulers, through utilizing mass media. Currently
in progress.
Phase Four: Open public confrontation with
the Government through exercising the political pressure approach. It is aggressively
implementing the above-mentioned approach. Training on the use of weapons
domestically and overseas in anticipation of zero-hour. It has noticeable
activities in this regard.
Phase Five: Seizing power to establish their
Islamic Nation under which all parties and Islamic groups are united.
If any further evidence were needed of the
threat posed by the Muslim Brotherhood, consider the comments on October 6,
2010 by Mohamed Badie, the Ikwan's virulent promoter of shariah who was installed
as its leader ("Supreme Guide") last year. According to a translation
provided by the indispensable Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI),
Badie declared:
[Today, the United States] is withdrawing
from Iraq, defeated and wounded, and it is on the verge of withdrawing from
Afghanistan. [All] its warplanes, missiles and modern military technology
were defeated by the will of the peoples, as long as [these peoples] insisted
on resistance. Its wealth will not avail it once Allah has had his say, as
happened with [powerful] nations in the past. The U.S. is now experiencing
the beginning of its end, and is heading towards its demise.
Barry Rubin, one of the most astute observers
of the Middle East, warned within days that this speech represented a "declaration
of war" by the Brotherhood, with it "adopting a view almost identical
to al Qaeda's" but coming from "a group with 100 times more activists
than al Qaeda."
At first blush, it seems incredible that the
sort of clarity about the Brotherhood's intentions that the foregoing provide
seems to be eluding many in official Washington and the policy elite. On closer
inspection, however, the muddle-headedness that has many describing the Ikhwan
as "non-violent," "democratic" and desirable candidates
for a coalition to replace Mubarak's dictatorship is, to use an old Soviet
expression, "no accident, comrade."
In fact, the aforementioned MB "Explanatory
Memorandum" provides a list of "Our Organizations and the Organizations
of Our Friends" that includes virtually every prominent Muslim-American
organization in business at that time. What is incredible, therefore, is that
many of these same Muslim Brotherhood fronts are used by the U.S. government
for "outreach" to the Muslim community and policy advice. The nation's
top intelligence official, James Clapper, has actually characterized the resulting
"dialogue with the Muslim community" as "a source of advice,
counsel, and wisdom."
As a result, one other thing should be frighteningly
clear: We are having our policies towards Egypt's succession - and the tsunami
it is accelerating elsewhere in the region influenced, shaped and probably
subverted by the Muslim Brotherhood's American operatives. If we let our enemies
call the shots, there is no doubt who will wind up taking the bullet.
- Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the
Center for Security Policy, a columnist for the Washington Times and host
of the nationally syndicated program, Secure Freedom Radio, heard in Washington
weeknights at 9:00 p.m. on WRC 1260 AM.