Debunking Muslim Brotherhood Myths

In an article today at The American Thinker, "The US and the Muslim Brotherhood", I take aim at one of the cardinal myths invoked by the Brotherhood's Western apologists in defense of their claims of a "moderate" Muslim Brotherhood. Here's a quick summary:

In the current debate on the Muslim Brotherhood, the group's Western apologists claim that the jihadist ideology of their leading thinker, Sayyid Qutb, was discarded in the late 1960s and 1970s with the publication of Hassan al-Hudaybi's "Preachers, Not Judges". But recent scholarship demonstrates Hudaybi didn't write the book, promote it, or even agree with it.

That's right. The main piece of evidence used the Muslim Brotherhood's defenders (the Nixon Center, James Traub's recent piece in the New York Times Magazine, etc.) is fabricated whole-cloth.

Perhaps the top scholar on this subject is Barbara Zollner, Director of Islamic Studies at Birbeck College, University of London. Not only is the book the topic of her PhD dissertation, but she has a volume on the subject, The Muslim Brotherhood: Hasan al-Hudaybi and Ideology, which is due to be published by Rutledge early next year.

At a conference held at Georgetown University in March on the theme of "Islamist Politics: Contemporary Trajectories in the Arab World," Zollner delivered a brief synopsis of her extensive research on the subject, "Du'at la Qudat: Notes on the Authorship, Purpose, and Relevance of a Text Purporting a Moderate Theology". During her lecture (available in audio here) she challenged the popular myth still advanced by the Muslim Brotherhood's Western apologists:

There are a number of writers who argue that Du'at la Qudat, when it was published in the 1970s, to be exact in 1977, that it is an evidence of the Muslim Brotherhood's turn away from radical thinking, and that it evidences a shift of the Muslim Brotherhood's stance towards a centrist Islamist ideology...What I want to say today are two things. Overall my argument that Preachers, Not Judges was not written by Hassan al-Hudaybi, and secondly, it is not written as a response to Sayyid Qutb.

Utilizing my recent research on the topic, journalist and terrorism finance expert Doug Farah blogged yesterday on "The Amazing Deception in the Muslim Brotherhood's Charm Offensive". In the comments section of Farah's post, however, appeared Ibrahim El Houdaiby, the great-granson of Hassan al-Hudaybi, invoking family folklore to rebut the overwhelming consensus of scholars on this subject, but not providing any substantive evidence in support of his claims. The strange thing is that since the revelations first appeared in 1995 about the true origins of "Preachers, Not Judges", and the testimony of others inside and outside the Brotherhood, this new information (that Hudaybi had no role in the creation of the book) has gone unchallenged until now.

This raises a lot of questions in the ongoing debate over the Muslim Brotherhood. Here's my conclusion:

These evidences raise some important questions in the current debate in the West over the Muslim Brotherhood: is it the case that the journalists and Beltway wonks appealing to Preachers, Not Judges as proof of a "reformed" Brotherhood are simply ignorant of most of the scholarship over the past decade on this topic, or have they determined to bury this evidence with their silence in the hope that it will be ignored? If the former, we have cause to question their credibility as self-appointed experts on the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, and we also have to acknowledge their gullibility in accepting unquestioned the propaganda put out by the group; if the latter, their pretended objectivity is little more than the component of the official duplicity that characterizes the Muslim Brotherhood's long-standing operational methodology. Only they can tell us which it is.

I'm not holding my breath for a response.

Nixon Center's Plumber's Unit?

I noted with great interest when looking at my blog stats this evening that someone from the Nixon Center showed up today to download most of my blog posts here at Existential Space (they downloaded ~120 of my 145 posts):


You might recall that over the past few weeks I've been having a bit of a debate with Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke of the Nixon Center following the publication of their article in the last issue of Foreign Affairs, "The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood", where they claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood, which has spawned virtually every single terrorist organization in the world, had "rejected jihad" and "embraced democracy".

Startled by those outrageous claims, I responded at FrontPage with a critique, "Mainstreaming the Muslim Brotherhood", (blogged on it here) where I remarked:

As the worldwide jihad has grown in intensity in recent years, the Brotherhood’s supporters in the US are trying to capitalize on the upward trend of Islamic radicalization to paint the organization as “moderate” on this shifting scale. This is precisely the methodology employed by Leiken and Brooke, who attempt the Herculean task of cleaning out the Augean Stables of the Muslim Brotherhood’s long involvement in terrorist activity through misrepresentation and outright fabrication.

A few weeks later, Leiken and Brooke attempted to respond to my critique, "A Response to Patrick Poole's 'Mainstreaming the Muslim Brotherhood'", engaging in a shameless attempt at doublespeak by claiming that there was some kind of distinction to be made between the Brotherhood's support for terrorism in the name of "defensive jihad" against innocent Israeli civilians and American troops serving in the Middle East and the "global jihad" against "Jews and Crusaders" proclaimed by al-Qaeda.

The Muslim Brotherhood so enthusiatically welcomes Leiken and Brooke's reponse to me that they reprinted it on their English-language website.

What they didn't expect, however, was less than a week later I would begin a devastating 3-part rejoinder to their demogoguery, "Showdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, Part 1" [Part 2] [Part 3] (see my blog entry, "A Rejoinder to the Muslim Brotherhood Lackeys")

Once again, Leiken and Brooke rely on evasion, duplicity and outright lies (I’ll discuss one glaring example of this latter tactic in relation to statements they made regarding the Brotherhood’s Jordanian affiliate) – methods not dissimilar to those used by the Muslim Brotherhood itself – to avoid answering the hard questions posed not just by myself, but by analysts from all across the political spectrum, about the organization’s deep and long-time connections to terrorism, their supposed disavowal of violence, and the genuineness of their claims to be favorably inclined towards democratic activity.

Since that time, I've been receiving regular visits from the Nixon Center to this blog, but they either haven't found the courage or the time to respond.

So what do I make of their new-found interest in my writings? It seems rather than respond to the substance of my arguments (my rejoinder came out to a full 54 pages and cited 50+ scholarly papers, government reports and journalistic works contradicting their claims) they are planning a full-frontal ad hominem attack - the last refuge of scoundrels left without any substance to their arguments.

Honestly, I feel sorry for the Nixon Center intern that they are probably forcing to go through all of these blog posts searching for something they can twist out of context and attack me with. but I hope they don't forget to include in their literature review some of my previous work (most of which I link to in the sidebar), such as my translation of Sixteenth Century Reformation-era political works, my previous public policy reports, the articles I've done for other publications (WorldNetDaily, American Thinker, etc.), or my worldview essay series for Christianity & Society.

Who knows? While they are already on ideological lockdown on the issue of the Muslim Brotherhood, they might nonetheless (or at least the Nixon Center intern) might learn a few things.

UPDATE (05/02/07): Welcome again to everyone joining us today from the Nixon Center!

A Rejoinder to the Muslim Brotherhood Lackeys

Over at FrontPage Magazine today is Part 1 of my rejoinder to Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke of the Nixon Center, "Showdown on the Muslim Brotherhood" [Part 2] [Part 3]. This is in response to their attack last week, "A Response to Patrick Poole's 'Mainstreaming the Muslim Brotherhood'".

There are four areas I address in this segment of my rejoinder:

1) The distinction they attempt to draw between terrorism committed for the sake of "defensive jihad" and "global jihad". According to Leiken and Brooke, the former justifies terrorism against Israel and the US in Iraq by groups like HAMAS and Iraqi insurgents, while the "war against Zionists and Crusaders" is being waged by al-Qaeda, etc. They are forced to make this meaningless distinction because the Muslim Brotherhood enthusiastically endorses and supports HAMAS, and Brotherhood clerics have issued fatwas permitting attacks against US soldiers. I argue this is a distinction without a difference, as the Brotherhood has not abandoned violence, which directly contradicts their claim of a "moderate" Muslim Brotherhood.

2) They claim that in the late 1960s, the Muslim Brotherhood rejected the jihadist doctrine of Sayyid Qutb, and adopted more peaceful, non-violent ideology. They point to Hasan al-Hudaybi's book, Preachers, Not Judges, as proof of this shift. But as I document, not only did Hudaybi pen that volume while he was in prison, when he first heard of Qutb's book, Signposts, he believed that it represented the "future of our organization". I also note that Hudaybi's book, which Leiken and Brooke claim is the key piece of evidence in the Muslim Brotherhood's ideological shift and critical for understanding the organization's strategy today, has not been reprinted in Egypt for almost 30 years, and has not been reprinted anywhere since 1985, while Qutb's Signposts is perhaps the best-selling Arabic-language book of the past half-century.

3) The pair equate their interpretation of "defensive jihad" with the Christian doctrine of "just war", though the latter has never permitted terrorism against innocents. In the end, whether it is "defensive jihad" or "global jihad", it is all terrorism and violence; and since the Brotherhood preaches both, there is little room to pronounce them "moderate".

4) In their original Foreign Affairs article, and in their response last week, Leiken and Brooke make much ado about alleged differences between the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda. They point to a statement last year where Ayman al-Zawahiri denounced the Muslim Brotherhood for participating in Egypt's parliamentary elections, where they won 20 percent of the seats. But we find that Zawahiri's position is unique amongst al-Qaeda, and the two organizations actually drew closer last summer during the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict. And al-Qaeda actively operates in the Palestinian Authority with the full knowledge and support of HAMAS, the Brotherhood's Palestinian affiliate and terrorist organization. Thus, al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood are much closer than they would like us to believe.

Thanks to Doug Farah and Alyssa Lappen for their respective posts at Counterterrorism Blog ("The Islamist Charm Offensive") and The American Thinker ("The Fount of Modern Terror").

UPDATE: "Showdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, Part 2" is now online. Here's my summary statement:

"Today I turn my attention to several national affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East – the Palestinian terrorist organization HAMAS, the pro-HAMAS Islamic Action Front (IAF) in Jordan, the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic Constitution Movement (ICM) in Kuwait, and the genocidal National Islamic Front (NIF) government in Sudan. The activity of these respective Brotherhood affiliates, and their ties to the main Muslim Brotherhood group in Egypt, severely undercuts Leiken and Brooke’s assertion of a “moderate” Muslim Brotherhood."

UPDATE #2: "Showdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, Part 3 (Conclusion)" is now up. Here's a summary:

1) The very un-moderate statements of the so-called “moderates” they identify within the Muslim Brotherhood;

2) I take note that many of the reformists within the Brotherhood, many of whom served in the organization’s leadership, left a long time ago (1996) to form the Al-Wasat (“Center”) Party, frustrated by the radicalization and ideological lockdown within the Brotherhood;

3) I respond to their accusation that US foreign policy is responsible for Islamic radicalization in the Middle East;

4) I document my previous claim that the Brotherhood has engaged in vote rigging and rampant financial fraud in their administration of the professional syndicates in Egypt, as well as observing that the sole piece of evidence they cited in their response on this point was subject to some suspicious editing on their part;

5) I directly challenge their claims that the Muslim Brotherhood has not been implicated in the violent and fatal attacks against the Coptic community in Egypt by citing a report published by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, in addition to reports issued by the Coptic community and articles in the Egyptian press;

6) I revisit the events surrounding the military demonstration by Muslim Brotherhood youth cadres at Al-Azhar University this past December, which prompted the current government crackdown on the organization, as evidence that
the intentions of the Brotherhood are not entirely peaceful;

7) I observe that their characterization of the Muslim Brotherhood affiliate in France, the UOIF, as a “moderate” organization is directly contradicted by recent studies published by their own organization, the Nixon Center, and that most careful researchers have concluded that France’s policy of embracing the Muslim Brotherhood has been a catastrophic failure and fueled Islamic radicalization – the same policy Leiken and Brooke demand the U.S. implement.

On the basis on the extensive evidence I have provided throughout this report, I conclude that when it comes to anything challenging the carefully manicured image of the Muslim Brotherhood crafted by Leiken and Brooke, they resort to the old maxim: see no evil; hear no evil; speak no evil. Other contradicting evidence is steadfastly ignored. In the event that fails, their policy has been: attack the critic. This is hardly the way to determine US foreign policy, but admittedly this is how business is conducted in the think tanks and policy shops of the Beltway intelligentsia.

The Muslim Brotherhood's Lackeys Strike Back!

A few weeks ago I had an article published at FrontPage, "Mainstreaming the Muslim Brotherhood" (blogged on it here), which critiqued an article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs by Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke, "The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood". Well, this morning the pair launch a counter-strike, "A Response to Patrick Poole's 'Mainstreaming the Muslim Brotherhood'".

Having done just a quick read-through, it seems that Leiken and Brooke are determined continue their policy of outrageous falsehoods and outright duplicty to get us to "ignore the man behind the curtain" regarding the MB.

Here are just a few quick thoughts:

• Yet again, any evidence that flatly contradicts their argument about the Muslim Brotherhood's "moderation" is either ignored or immediately discounted and quickly explained away. Anyone within the Brotherhood that has said or done something that betrays something other than "moderation" -- even if it is the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, the top ranking officer of the organization -- is attributed to "hard-line" and "controversial" figures, and out-of-step with the supposed majority "reformist" elements of the MB. And to make sure they cover all their bases, I have "ripped everything out of context".


• They ignore the analysis I gave of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's 2004 Reform Initiative, where the Brotherhood outlined their vision of "democracy" and detailed their plans for an Islamic state governed by shari'a, where non-Muslims will be prohibited from holding public office with any substantive authority. But remember, they're moderate!


• They ignore as well the role that the Muslim Brotherhood's extensive financial networks have played in financing virtually every Islamic terrorist organization in the world, including Al-Qaeda (putting the lie to their repeated claims that the MB rejects Al-Qaeda's "global" jihad). Much like the monster under the bed, if you ignore it, it will go away.


• Once again HAMAS, the terrorist organization that is the Palestinian affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, is virtually non-existent in their analysis (two paragraphs of their response). And they explain, since HAMAS is only killing Jews in Israel, instead of Americans (even though they do kill Jewish Americans every now and then, which they apparently expect us to forgive and forget), all is well. And they assure us that the relationship between the Palestinian and Egyptian branches are "more strained than Poole believes" (and they make sufficiently clear that they are also experts about what I believe).


• They quibble over the definition of "rejecting jihad" and "rejecting global jihad", which when you're getting your head cut off, or your children are being blown to bits in the market square, makes all the difference in the world.


• They completely fabricate that I believe that the Egyptian government is only cracking down on Muslim extremists, and that I am ignoring the plight of bloggers, journalists, etc. under the Mubarak regime. Where exactly did they get this?


• They accuse me of manufacturing claims that the Brotherhood incites violence against the Coptic community, which I'm sure that the Copts will be glad to hear that it's all just a figment of my imagination!

This "response" by Leiken and Brooke is as flatly dishonest as the response they recently offered to Douglas Farah and other critics of their Foreign Affairs article (Farah offers a detailed response at his blog) two weeks ago.

And I would direct your attention to a must-read entry yesterday at Counterterrorism Blog by Bill West ("Some US Diplomats & Politicians Think MB = “Moderate” Brotherhood - They Should Think Twice") taking note of an Adnkronos International (AKI) report that HAMAS has now opened up operations against the US in Iraq as "Iraqi HAMAS". I'm sure that Leiken and Brooke will remind us next how strained the relations are between the moderates and the new Iraqi HAMAS branch. Needless to say, a more detailed rejoinder to their response will be forthcoming.

Finally, let me also direct you to my headline article today at FrontPage on "Mortgage Fraud Funding Jihad".

UPDATE: Following up on a point I made above, the picture below taken in 2005 shows a crowd of the Muslim Brotherhood faithful demonstrating their friendship to the Copts with rocks, bottles, sticks and machetes. With friends like these...

The Muslim Brotherhood and Democracy

Earlier this week FrontPage published my article, “Mainstreaming the Muslim Brotherhood,” where I challenged the claims made by Nixon Center policy fellows Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke that characterize the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as “rejecting jihad” and “embracing democracy”. Leiken and Brooke initially made their argument in the current issue of Foreign Affairs in their article, “The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood”. Late last week they lashed out at their critics (without responding to the criticism) in another article, “Strategic Thinking about the Muslim Brotherhood”.

What makes the Leiken/Brooke articles so dangerous, apart from the fact that they were featured in a publication of the influential Council on Foreign Relations and have the endorsement of the Nixon Center, is that they are so fundamentally dishonest. The pair attempts to make their case by intentionally excluding the overwhelming evidence that contradicts their most basic assertions. As I mentioned in my previous article, they contend that the Muslim Brotherhood has “rejected jihad”, and yet their article of 15 pages only once makes mention of the Brotherhood’s Palestinian affiliate, the terrorist group HAMAS. And in that one mention, they never indicate any organizational connection whatsoever between HAMAS and the Brotherhood.

Then there is the Brotherhood’s international financial network of banks, especially the Al-Taqwa Bank led by the Brotherhood’s “foreign minister” Yousef Nada, which have served as the ATM for virtually every Islamic terrorist group in the world – a point made earlier this week by terrorist finance expert Douglas Farah, “The Ongoing Debate over the Muslim Brotherhood”. As recently as October 2000, Al-Taqwa even maintained an open revolving line of credit for Al-Qaeda’s terrorist operations, which prompted US Treasury authorities to designate it as a terrorist financing operation just weeks after 9/11 (among other reasons).

In a separate post, Farah expands on a point I raised in my own article, that we have a real-world working example of the kind of government the Muslim Brotherhood envisions in the genocidal National Islamic Front (NIF) regime of Sudan (Note: in my previous article, I mis-identified the NIF as the Islamic Salvation Front). The NIF came to power in 1989 in a military-backed coup that overthrew the democratically-elected government. The Bashir/Turabi NIF Brotherhood regime is responsible for millions of Christians and animists killed and starved in the South of the country during their tenure. And then there is the present crisis in Darfur, where the Arab Muslims of Khartoum are waging jihad against the non-Arab Muslims in the West, where more than 200,000 have been killed and many more displaced. Thus, the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan is responsible for the greatest acts of genocide seen since the Holocaust. We should also recall that the Brotherhood regime in Khartoum gave Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda shelter after bin Laden’s Saudi Arabian citizenship was revoked.

For the purposes of the current discussion, it’s important to note that none of these facts about the involvement of the Muslim Brotherhood in ideological and financial support of terrorism are really under dispute, nor are the connections of the larger organization to HAMAS and the NIF regime in Sudan.

Then we turn to the issue of the Brotherhood’s “embrace of democracy”. The Brotherhood had an opportunity this week to demonstrate their commitment to democracy in Egypt, where they hold 88 seats in Parliament (about one-fifth of the total), in a constitutional referendum. The Muslim Brotherhood boycotted the vote, however, claiming that the amendments up for consideration were designed to limit their ability to engage in political activity – a claim with merit. One of the 32 amendments up for consideration bans religiously-based political parties, which directly targeted the Brotherhood.

I am certainly no apologist for the Mubarak regime, and I agree that many these amendments increase the powers of an already autocratic government, which is what makes the Brotherhood’s boycott of the referendum so hypocritical. Their non-participation in the referendum betrays their lukewarm (at best) adherence to democracy. The called boycott of the referendum only came after the Brotherhood was unable to defeat the amendments legislatively. Being in favor of democracy hypothetically for Western audiences is useless for establishing peace and stability in the Middle East (the intentions of the West) if the Muslim Brotherhood regularly renounces opportunities to practice democracy in actuality or participates only when it suits their purposes.

The constitutional amendments before the Egyptian electorate this week passed with 76 percent of the vote, and yet voter turnout was a meager 27 percent. If the Muslim Brotherhood believed that these amendments threatened their political existence, it would have been quite easy to defeat these amendments by mobilizing their supporters. Again, only 27 percent of voters showed up, and at least 24 percent of those voted against the amendments. But facing the risk of trying and possibly losing (and thus giving the results legitimacy), the Brotherhood opted out of democracy altogether.

In this instance, the Brotherhood boycotted the referendum and their chance to convince their skeptics at home and abroad that they were serious about democracy. The truth is that the Muslim Brotherhood is only interested in democracy as long as it’s to their benefit. Their commitment to democracy is not principled, but pragmatic; it is one option amongst many that they maintain, including turning to violence, which means they have no commitment to democracy at all. Their theoretical “embrace” of democracy is what they believe they need their supporters in the West to see and hear in order to obtain the international legitimacy they know will be essential to advance their Islamist agenda in Egypt, the Muslim world and beyond.

So I put the question to Robert Leiken, Steven Brooke, and the many promoters of the Muslim Brotherhood’s “moderation”: if their commitment to democracy is sincere, why the boycott on the referendum when a defeat of the amendments they opposed could have easily been had? If they are so committed to “embracing democracy”, as their Western supporters tell us, and the stakes so admittedly high for them in this constitutional referendum, why would they simply take a pass?

If the Brotherhood was really serious about “embracing democracy” they would not make it a policy of picking and choosing when they were going to do so. That they in fact do pick and choose, so clearly demonstrated in their boycott of the referendum this week, should indicate to policymakers in Washington that the Muslim Brotherhood’s “embrace” of democracy is tenuous at best, and duplicitous at worst.

For further reading on the Muslim Brotherhood, see this previous post, "More on the Muslim Brotherhood".

UPDATE: A colleague emailed and made this point:

"Not sure I agree entirely, this may be the wrong example. Even Egyptian judges say this election was a farce and the results should be ignored. As usual Mubarak went too far: he should have had a straight election with a typical 55% turnout, and let the MB's 25% showing reflect their marginal status."

I responded:

"I would agree with your assessment regarding the referendum (and admitted as much in my post), but there's no indication that this election was anymore fraudulent than in the past. There really wasn't much need for excessive vote rigging with such low turnout. The simple fact is that the Mubarak regime is a reality; if the MB wants to play democratic, they are going to have to do so dealing with that reality, much like we have to do here with Democrats stealing elections when they are able (Woody Jenkins, Bob Dornan, Dino Rossi, et al.). If the MB wanted to protest the corruption in this election, they should have walked out of Parliament, not lost the vote legislatively and then called for a boycott on the referendum. It's precisely the picking and choosing when they are going to be democratic that shows their duplicity. I don't immediately see how the behavior of the Mubarak regime changes that.

"From a strictly diplomatic point-of-view, we can't demand that the MB in Egypt act democratically and fault them for not doing so, then turn right around and question if there even is a democracy - this justifies the MB's position and propaganda with reference to the government. And it is precisely the diplomatic recognition of the MB on our end that's presently at issue."

My friend's point is well-taken. He's right from a strategic point of view that Mubarak should have at least pretended that the referendum was more legitimate than it was, and let the MB walk the plank. The point I am raising though is the "he loves me, he loves me not" relationship of the MB to democratic action. Are boycotts ever acceptable democratic behavior? Historically speaking, they are not very successful in effecting regime change. But is it appropriate to lose an issue democratically, as the MB did when these constitutional referendum amendments were approved by the Parliament over the MB's dissent, and then turn around and boycott the referendum claiming corruption after they lost the issue legislatively? Are they allowed to have it both ways?

Mainstreaming the Muslim Brotherhood

Welcome to everybody visiting today from my FrontPage Magazine article, "Mainstreaming the Muslim Brotherhood". The article is in response to Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke's piece in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, "The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood", where they claim that the MB has abandoned violence and embraces democracy. This, of course, is categorical BS, but it is sentiment common enough these days, as seen in a Washington Post op-ed a week ago, another op-ed in the Boston Globe this past weekend, and an article in the Toronto Star. It seems that the Brotherhood is going on the offense to try to get the Bush Administration to begin dialogue with the MB.

Here's my conclusion:

I would contend that when the advocates of engagement with the Muslim Brotherhood make their case, they never do so as honest brokers. As we can see in the current Foreign Affairs piece, any evidence that would immediately contradict their thesis is not only excluded, but intentionally obscured. Their message is clearly directed at an audience unfamiliar with the Brotherhood’s history, message and program, and insults the intelligence of anyone somewhat familiar with such.

In arguing that the Brotherhood is presently “rejecting jihad”, even the limited examples they cite don’t hold up under scrutiny; and in claiming that the organization is “embracing democracy”, they are clearly equivocating in their use of the term.

To make a case for the “Moderate Muslim Brotherhood” requires nothing short of blind faith. No amount of spin offered by the “progressive” policy wonks or media pundits can account for the fact that not only has the Muslim Brotherhood spawned virtually ever single Islamic terrorist organization in the world, but they have used the financial network established by the Brotherhood to conduct their bloody business (an excellent and concise treatment of this subject is available: Douglas Farah, “The Little Explored Offshore Empire of the International Muslim Brotherhood”). This direct support for terrorism is not just past, but present, policy on their part.

Policymakers in Washington should not be fooled by the carefully manicured, but entirely misleading, presentation of the Muslim Brotherhood offered by their US defenders. If any policy change is needed, it isn’t to engage them as a force for moderation and positive change in the Middle East, but to finally designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a Specially Designated Terrorist Organization and make any exceptions from that point.

For some required reading on the Muslim Brotherhood, check out this previous post, "More on the Muslim Brotherhood".

Thanks to Douglas Farah for plugging my article at Counterterrorism Blog and an entry on his personal blog today, and thanks to Charles at Little Green Footballs for the plug as well.

UPDATE: And a special welcome to the folks visiting from the Nixon Center, Leiken and Brooke's place of employment. We're glad to see you were able to stop by earlier today!

Paint Me Paranoid

One of the little convenient features here at Existential Space is the MindViz tracker that can be accessed by anyone at the bottom of the index page. Interested in who might be visiting? I didn't think so, but this morning I noticed one particular visitor who stopped by this morning. The image below is a screen capture of that visitor.

It might be a little hard to read, but someone in Egypt came here after doing a Google search looking for "Patrick Poole images". Now might it be the case that word of my legendary good looks has now gone international? Not likely. So exactly who in Egypt might have an interest in my personal details? One possible explanation might be someone associated with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood trying to dig up dirt to counteract the public pounding I've been giving that organization recently. But that doesn't quite explain why they would looking for a picture of me. Another explanation might be that they were just looking for my fabulous photography. That possibility notwithstanding, I carry my CCW and my .380 in the event that any of my Egyptian, Saudi Arabian, Pakistani, etc. "fans" are looking for more than my picture.

As the saying goes, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that they're not out to get you. Yes, paint me paranoid.

More on the Muslim Brotherhood

UPDATE (03/26/07): Welcome to everyone visiting from LGF today! Feel free to stay and look around a while!

Following up on my article this morning at The American Thinker, "The Militarization of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood," here are a few background resources for those interested in more information on the Muslim Brotherhood:

Patrick Poole, "The Muslim Brotherhood 'Project': The Radical Islamist Plan to Conquer the West - and the World" FrontPage Magazine (May 11, 2006) [text of "The Project"]

Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, Sam Roe and Laurie Cohen, "A Rare Look at Secretive Brotherhood in America", Chicago Tribune (09/19/04)

John Mintz and Douglas Farah, "In Search of Friends Among the Foes", Washington Post (09/11/04)

Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen, "The Truth About the Muslim Brotherhood" FrontPage Magazine (06/16/06) [Part II] [Part III] [Part IV]

Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen, "The Progress of Hassan al-Banna's Vision" The American Thinker (Nov. 24, 2006)

Lydia Khalil, "Al-Qaeda & the MB: United by Strategy, Divided by Tactics," Terrorism Monitor, Vol. IV, Issue 6 (March 23, 2006)

Adel Guindy, "The Islamization of Egypt", Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Vol. 10, No. 3 (Sept. 2006)

Lorenzo Vidino, "The Muslim Brotherhood's Conquest of Europe," Middle East Quarterly Vol. XII, No. 1 (Winter 2005)

Lorenzo Vidino, "Aims and Methods of Europe's Muslim Brotherhood," Current Trends in Islamist Ideology Vol. 4 (November 2006)

Glen Feder, "The Muslim Brotherhood in France", In The National Interest (Sept. 2005)

Diaa Rashwan, "Islamism in Transition", Al-Ahram Weekly No. 420 (March 11-17, 1999)

Alain Chouet, "The Association of Muslim Brothers: Chronicle of a Barbarism Foretold", European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center (04/06/06) [pdf]

Douglas Farah, "The Little Explored Offshore Empire of the International Muslim Brotherhood", International Assessment and Strategy Center (April 18, 2006)

Everybody Wants to Rule the World (But Islamists Are Planning for It!)

"I have complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America, because Islam has logic and a mission.” – Muhammad Mahdi Othman ‘Akef, Muslim Brotherhood General Guide and Supreme Leader

One present area of study for me are the many cultural strategies developed by Islamists for the eventual Islamization of the West and the rest of the world. I have previously written about the Muslim Brotherhood "Project" and have provided for the first time an edited translation of that document for American readers. The Project, drafted by MB "researchers" in 1982 when the organization was rechartered, is part of an entire genre of Islamist literature of that period dedicated to the strategic takeover of the West inspired by the birth of the Islamic "Republic" of Iran and the reinstitution of shari'a law there.

In my analysis of The Project, I described it thus:

What makes The Project so different...is that it represents a flexible, multi-phased, long-term approach to the “cultural invasion” of the West. Calling for the utilization of various tactics, ranging from immigration, infiltration, surveillance, propaganda, protest, deception, political legitimacy and terrorism, The Project has served for more than two decades as the Muslim Brotherhood “master plan”. As can be seen in a number of examples throughout Europe – including the political recognition of parallel Islamist government organizations in Sweden, the recent “cartoon” jihad in Denmark, the Parisian car-burning intifada last November, and the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London – the plan outlined in The Project has been overwhelmingly
successful.

Rather than focusing on terrorism as the sole method of group action, as is the case with Al-Qaeda, in perfect postmodern fashion the use of terror falls into a multiplicity of options available to progressively infiltrate, confront, and eventually establish Islamic domination over the West.

While some have questioned the authenticity of The Project (one critic responding to my analysis of dubbed it "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Mecca" and therefore an apparent fake), the fact that a number of these Islamist strategic plans have been documented coming from several different organizations should give some evidence that acknowledging the existence of such is hardly conspiratorial. Rather than revealing some secret cabal exercising power globally, this genre of Islamist cultural strategic studies is dedicated to obtaining power. The Project is no more conspiratorial than Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals was for the New Left in America during the 1960s (it is worth noting that 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton dedicated her senior thesis at Wellesley College to Alinky's political and social thought - a thesis that is currently under seal thanks to Wellesley administrators).

In Europe, of course, they are much more aware of the intentions of the Islamists since the large Muslim communities throughout Western Europe have attained much greater social and political influence there than here in America, where the Muslim population is still quite small (around 1 percent of the overall population). One recent analyst of the present situation in Europe is Egon Flaig, who had an article published by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung entitled, "Islam Wants to Conquer the World" (English translation thanks to Western Resistance; the original article in German can be found here at the FAZ site). Flaig's article (which was banned in Egypt) provides some historical context from the history of Islam itself, from the rapid conquest and domination of North Africa, followed by Islamization efforts in Spain, Anatolia, and the Balkans - all at the expense of Christianity. Despite the revisionist attempts by 19th Century European scholars to whitewash this history, Islam has plenty of experience transitioning from minority community to ruling community through the escalating use of violence against non-Muslims. In his conclusion, Flaig warns against ignoring this reality:

To ignore the past means to re-live it. He who keeps on spreading the fairytale of Muslim tolerance, stands in the way of those Muslim intellectuals, who seriously work towards a reformation of islam, which started out so promisingly in the 19th century. He steals away their chance to overcome a past, which threatens to become a horrible present. If the reformers could achieve a radical de-politicization of Islam, the Muslims could become real citizens of their states.

Another scholar that presents the European dilemma in stark detail is Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo, an Anglican cleric and Christian convert from Islam. In his August 2005 article, "The Islamization of Europe", he cites a book published in 1980 by the Islamic Council of Europe, Muslim Communities in Non-Muslim States, which offers a comprehensive program for the eventual domination of Muslims throughout Europe:

When Muslims live as a minority they face theological problems, because classical Islamic teaching always presupposed a context of Islamic dominance; hence the need for guidance on how to live in non-Muslim states. The instructions given in the book told Muslims to get together and organise themselves with the aim of establishing a viable Muslim community based on Islamic principles. This is the duty of every individual Muslim living within a non-Muslim political entity. They should set up mosques, community centres and Islamic schools. At all costs they must avoid being assimilated by the majority. In order to resist assimilation, they must group themselves geographically, forming areas of high Muslim concentration within the population as a whole. Yet they must also interact with non-Muslims so as to share the message of Islam with them. Every Muslim individual is required to participate in the plan; it is not allowed for anyone simply to live as a “good Muslim” without assisting the overall strategy. The ultimate goal of this strategy is that the Muslims should become a majority and the entire nation be governed according to Islam.

Regardless of the means and ends they recommend, as an outside observer, I have to give Islamists credit for their shrewd cultural strategy and the effectiveness and discipline they have demonstrated in implementing their agenda in Europe and America. They are well ahead of the game, aided in no small part to the spiritual vacuum created by militant secularism and the decline of the Christian faith.

In coming weeks I hope to expand on this theme of Islamist cultural strategic studies and discuss other variants on the theme of the Islamist takeover of the West in addition to The Project of the Muslim Brotherhood, including similiar plans by the Islamic Foundation (UK)/Jamaat-e-Islami (Pakistan) and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. This is part of my preparation for the speech I will be delivering at the upcoming International Intelligence Summit, March 5-7, in St. Petersburg, FL. Stay tuned!