In FrontPage this morning I discuss the headlong rush to open talks with the Muslim Brotherhood:
Following quickly after the revelation that the Obama administration had resolved to establish contact with the Muslim Brotherhood, the European Union has announced that it, too, is interested in talking with the group. Michael Mann, a spokesperson for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, explained: “We are always open to dialogue with anyone who is interested in democracy.” Ashton thus becomes the latest in a long line of Western officials who have confused democracy with the practice of voting itself, and ignored the manifest fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is dedicated to ideals that all free societies should oppose.
Among those officials also are a great many at the highest levels in Washington, where wishful thinking about the Brotherhood (and other matters Islamic) not only prevails, but is the guiding force in formulating Middle East policy. After all, it was the spectacularly clueless intelligence chief James Clapper who labeled the group “largely secular,” demonstrating abject ignorance not only of the meaning of the word “Muslim” in the group’s name, but of its own stated goals and agenda, which have been consistent since it was founded.
Contrary to claims that it is a moderate organization, the Muslim Brotherhood is actually the prototypical Islamic supremacist, pro-Sharia group of the modern age. […]
And just weeks ago Dr. Kamal Al-Helbawy, former Muslim Brotherhood spokesman in the West, declared: “Our thinking and our affiliation are to the exalted Allah. Our affiliation is to Islam. The global state of Islam is our ideal”¦How will countries like Bahrain or Qatar defend themselves? Why shouldn’t we have a country called “˜The United States of Islam”?”…