On March 25, The New York Times published an editorial effectively calling for US President Barack Obama to abandon the US alliance with Egypt.
The Obama White House’s house paper urged the president to “reassess whether an alliance that has long been considered a cornerstone of American national security policy is doing more harm than good.” The editorial concluded that Obama must “start planning for the possibility of a break in the alliance with Egypt.”
The Times’ call was based on an open letter to Obama authored by a bipartisan group of foreign policy experts that call themselves the “Working Group on Egypt.” Citing human rights violations on the part of the government of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the Working Group urged Obama to tie US financial and military assistance to Egypt to the protection of NGOs operating in Egypt.
The self-proclaimed bipartisan band of experts is co-chaired by Robert Kagan from the Brookings Institution and Michele Dunne from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Among its prominent members are Elliott Abrams, Ellen Bork, Reuel Gerecht, Brian Katulis, Neil Hicks and Sarah Margon.
The Working Group has a history.
In January 2011, it called for Obama to force then Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to resign from office. In so doing, it provided bipartisan cover for Obama’s decision to abandon the US’s most critical and dependable ally in the Arab world. Then, as now, the group’s esteemed experts argued that due to the regime’s infringement of human rights, the US could not in good conscience support it. Back in 2011, Israelis found a rare wall-to-wall unanimity of purpose in vocally and forcefully defending Mubarak from his American detractors. From the far Left to the far Right, from the IDF General Staff to the street, Israelis warned anyone who would listen that if Mubarak were forced out of power, the Muslim Brotherhood would take over and transform Egypt into a jihadist state.
Due in large part to the presence of senior Republican foreign policy hands on the Working Group, by and large Israel’s warnings were ignored in Washington. Facing the unusual Israeli consensus backing Mubarak was an American consensus insisting that “democracy” would ensure that a new liberal democratic Egypt would emerge out the ashes of the Mubarak regime.
The Americans chided us for repeating over and over again that the Muslim Brotherhood, the progenitor of al-Qaida, Hamas, Egyptian Islamic Jihad and every other major Sunni jihadist terrorist group around at the time, was a terrorist group.
We were attacked as “anti-democratic,” for insisting that the Facebook posters and twitterers on Twitter were in no position to replace Mubarak.
Who were we, the Americans scoffed, to point out that the “Facebook revolutionaries” were but a flimsy veneer which barely hid the Islamists from willfully blind Western officials and reporters who refused to admit that liberal values are not universal values – to put it mildly.
In the ensuing five years, every single warning that Israel expressed was borne out in spades.
Just as we said, right after Mubarak was forced from power, the Islamists unceremoniously dispatched with the Facebook crowd. The two million Islamists who converged on Tahrir Square to hear Sheikh Yussuf Qaradawi call for jihad and the Islamic conquest of Israel weren’t interested in democracy.
The women and Christians of Egypt soon realized, Mubarak’s overthrow, which paved the way for the Muslim Brotherhood electoral victories in 2012, did not expand their rights, it endangered their lives. As for the hapless Americans, immediately after Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi was inaugurated to serve as president of Egypt, the government began demanding that the US release from prison Omar Abdel Rahman, the so-called Blind Sheikh who masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. The US embassy in Cairo was the target of jihadist riots on September 11, 2012.
Then, since Morsi was elected democratically, none of this was any sweat off the back of Washington’s Egypt experts. They supported sending F-16s to his air force even after he hosted then Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Cairo, let Iranian warships traverse the Suez Canal and became a strategic ally of Hamas. They also supported his government, even though he enabled Libyan arms to flow through Egypt to Syria, transforming the war in Syria from a local dispute into the incubator for Islamic State – the precursor of which Morsi also gave a free hand to operate in the Sinai, in conjunction with Hamas.
The Americans didn’t reconsider their belief that Morsi was the guy for them, even after he allowed his Muslim Brothers to torch Coptic churches and massacre Christians. They didn’t revisit their support for the Muslim Brotherhood government even after Morsi arrogated to himself dictatorial powers that even Mubarak never dreamed of.
Perhaps if Morsi had been a responsible economic leader, and maintained the liberalization policies Mubarak enacted during his last five years in power, then defense minister Abdel Fatah Sisi wouldn’t have felt the need to remove him from power. After all, Morsi appointed Sisi to his position.
But in addition to ending even lip service to human rights, Morsi gutted the economy. By the time the military overthrew Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in the summer of 2013, Egypt had a mere $5 billion in reserves, and according to the World Health Organization, a quarter of Egyptians were starving.
So had the Muslim Brotherhood remained in power, Egypt would not have remained a democracy.
It would have become a jihadist state as dangerous as Iran, with the economic prospects of North Korea.
In other words, five years ago, there was no chance that a post-Mubarak Egypt would become a liberal democracy. There were only two options – a US-allied tyranny that fought jihad and maintained the peace with Israel, or a jihad state, aligned with Iran, that posed an existential threat to Israel, Jordan, the US and the international economy.
Those are still the choices today, but the stakes are even higher. Due to the Muslim Brotherhood’s year in power, the jihadist elements that gathered force in the Sinai over the past 20 years were able to organize as a more or less unified force, under the rule of Islamic State (ISIS), and in strategic alliance with Hamas. Like ISIS in Syria, ISIS in Egypt is an aggressive, dangerous group that stops at nothing to achieve its aims of expanding the ISIS empire.
The war it now fights against the Egyptian state is a total war.
To his credit, Sisi recognizes the nature of the threat and has taken steps to counter jihad that Mubarak never contemplated. The Egyptian leader recognizes that to defeat ISIS nothing less than a reformation of Islam is required. And so, in addition to fighting ISIS with everything he has, he is risking everything by taking on the jihadist belief system.
Sisi has mobilized the clerics at Al-Azhar seminary to develop an Islamic narrative that rejects jihad.
Sisi risks everything because everything is already at risk. If ISIS wins, Egypt is finished.
To win this war, he has publicly embraced Israel as an ally. He has openly sided with Israel against Hamas. Unlike Mubarak, Sisi has been fully willing to acknowledge that just because Hamas’s primary victims are Jews doesn’t mean that it isn’t a terrorist group that has to be destroyed.
Without putting too fine a point on in, for his fearless fight to the death with the forces of jihad – both in the mosque and on the battlefield – Sisi has already entered the pantheon, alongside Winston Churchill, of word historical figures. And yet, rather than embrace him and support him in his fight for Egypt and humanity, the same “experts” who called for Mubarak to be overthrown now urge Obama to abandon Sisi.
It is depressing that there is no magic bullet – like democracy – for the pathologies that afflict the Islamic world. But there is no magic bullet. And there are no easy choices for people who refuse to recognize that the natural state of man is neither liberal nor democratic.
But it is hard to accept the credibility of those who refuse to learn from their mistakes. It is harder still as well to listen to the “moral calls” of those who refuse to accept that because their past advice was heeded, thousands have died, and if their current calls are heeded, millions of lives will be imperiled.
Iran has stepped up its belligerency in the Middle East since signing the nuclear agreement, increasing its involvement in conflicts from Syria and Iraq to Yemen and flaunting its forbidden ballistic missile program.
The United States, for its part, has reacted fecklessly, fudging its redlines regarding the Islamic Republic and making empty threats.
Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama commented that Iran was obeying the “letter” of the nuclear agreement with the West, but not the “spirit” of it.
The president’s remark came after the second testing of ballistic missiles (designed to carry nuclear warheads) by the Islamic Republic. While Congress was originally told a moratorium on the Iranian ballistic missile program was part of the agreement, the administration decided it really wasn’t – and that the test constituted “merely” a violation of U.N. resolutions.
No matter that in the latest test, conducted while Joe Biden was visiting Tel Aviv, the missiles had Hebrew writing on them saying “Israel should be wiped out.”
The harshest criticism Obama could muster against the test was that such provocations would be bad for international trade as they would make countries “nervous” to do business with Iran.
Similarly, Congress was told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would be conducting inspections of all Iranian nuclear facilities and would have full, independent access. We then heard that two key passages of the Iran deal were kept secret – not only from Congress, but from the president himself.
The secret deal involved the Parchin military installation, which was under suspicion for years for conducting research on nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles. The second centered on negotiations between the IAEA and Iran to resolve the issue of possible military dimensions (PMD) of Iran’s nuclear program.
Again, there was no reaction from the U.S. administration. Now, that inaction is (finally) prompting outrage in Congress. As Jennifer Rubin writes in The Washington Post, “Congressional leaders from both parties are firing back over what they see is evidence that Congress was blatantly misled about the terms of the deal and the administration’s willingness to confront Iran’s non-nuclear behavior.”
As Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) said, “When multiple officials—including Secretary Kerry, Secretary Lew, and Ambassador Mull—testify in front of Members of Congress, we are inclined to believe them. However, the gap between their promises on the Iran nuclear deal and today’s scary reality continues to widen. We are now trying to determine whether this was intentional deception on the part of the administration or new levels of disturbing acquiescence to the Iranians.”
In the last weeks, it was reported that:
Iran warned the United States that it would be crossing a “redline” if it tried to stop Iran’s ballistic missile program. In the words of Iranian Deputy Chief of Staff Brig.-Gen. Maassoud Jazzayeri, “The White House should know that defense capacities and missile power, especially at the present juncture where plots and threats are galore, is among the Iranian nation’s red lines and a backup for the country’s national security and we don’t allow anyone to violate it.”
Iran is beefing up its military presence in Syria by sending an elite unit of commandos as “advisors” to be stationed near Aleppo. The elite force joins thousands of Iranian troops from its Revolutionary Guards Corps as well as Iranian-backed fighters from the Lebanese terror organization Hezbollah.
The Obama administration, ever eager to hand out more benefits to the enemies of Israel, the United States, and the rest of Western Civilization, is now planning to help Iran obtain access to U.S. dollars — which will help Iran buy more on the international markets, the Wall Street Journal reports today.
This concession by the U.S. to Iran is apparently being made because Iran has asserted that the unsigned, non-binding deal Iran entered into last year with the United States and other countries does not provide enough benefits to Iran.
At the same time that the Obama administration is trying to figure out how to give Iran access to U.S. dollars, the administration’s own Treasury Department still maintains that the entire Iranian banking system is one big “primary money laundering concern.”
Money laundering is a financial transaction designed to conceal what money is used for or where it came from. President Obama’s Treasury Department, not yet having completely unmoored itself from reality or common sense, sees Iran’s financial system as a money laundering operation because Iran moves money around to support a variety of programs that the rest of the world asserts – usually – are impermissible for Iran to engage in, such as funding terror organizations all around the world like Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as Iranian missile programs that some still believe Iran is barred from operating. To accomplish this, Iran conceals the true sources and uses of the money. That’s the money laundering.
But while the Treasury Department doesn’t want Iran to have access to dollars, the Treasury Department and the State Department want Iran to have access to U.S. dollars. Yes, you read that correctly. After all, says Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, we here in the United States must of course comply with “the letter and the spirit” of the unsigned, non-binding-on-Iran “agreement.”
Surprisingly for the most powerful economy in the world, the big worry here is not only that Iran will be unhappy with the U.S., but also that a continued ban on Iranian access to dollars “will ultimately drive business activity away form the U.S. financial system.” To say that more clearly: While the U.S. might prefer that Iran not engage in all these transactions, it’s going to do so anyway, and if we don’t help, Iran will simply conduct the transactions in another currency. Since we can’t beat ‘em, we might as well join ‘em.
The combination of these two pressures is apparently simply irresistible to the Obama administration, and as a result, in March, Lew told a congressional committee that the administration “will make sure Iran gets relief” from restrictions that limit its access to dollars. The relief will come in the form of changes in Treasury regulations, so no pesky Congressmen, or annoyances like a vote of the U.S. legislature, will be involved.
A few of those irritating Congressmen have complained to the administration about these proposed changes. They’ve written angry letters to President Obama and Secretary Lew. Those letters have had as much impact as your letters to The New York Timesabout its coverage of Israel.
Of course, readers with long memories may recall that back in the summer, when the Iran agreement was not yet an unsigned unbinding – usually – deal, Lew said this about the agreement’s impact on Iran’s access to dollars: after the agreement becomes final (he did not tell us it would be unsigned, of course, or non-binding, at least on Iran) “Iranian banks will not be able to clear U.S. dollars through New York, hold correspondent account relationships with U.S. financial institutions, or enter into financial arrangements with U.S. banks.”
The changes proposed now by the Obama administration and Secretary Lew will render all of those reassuring prohibitions true but irrelevant. That is because Treasury will create administrative work-arounds that enable Iranian banks to achieve the same effects as all of these direct relationships with U.S. financial institutions without Iran actually having any such direct relationships. Isn’t that special?
They’ll just be indirect relationships. No doubt the indirectness of the relationship will be a great comfort to people around the world who are blown up by bombs purchased with U.S. dollars provided by Iran. After all, it’s so much more comforting to be murdered by bombs purchased indirectly.
Senator Leahy (D-Time Warner) heading this up is not a surprise. His pro-terrorist and anti-Israel views are well known. There’s a long and ugly history there. And Leahy is once again trying to defund the Israeli military.
The Leahy letter to Kerry though is blatantly Muslim Brotherhood inspired. It classes together Israel and Egypt, accusing Israel of “extrajudicial” killings of Islamic terrorists and broadcasting the Muslim Brotherhood’s claims of victimhood in Egypt.
The claims about “human rights violations” in Egypt lists Muslim Brotherhood figures who were killed by Egyptian police in a shootout with the Islamic terror group after it was removed from power by political protests, including Osama al-Husseini, Hisham Khifagy and Ibrahim al-Sisi, the Brotherhood’s “defense minister”.
The Leahy letter never mentions the Muslim Brotherhood though making it not only a pro-terrorist letter, but a dishonest one.
Leahy and other Democrats also complain about Israel killing some of these Islamic terrorists…
Fadi Alloun stabbed a 15-year-old in Jerusalem in early October, 2015, moderately wounding him. The attacker fled and was killed by police fire after they noticed the knife in his hand.
Saad Al-Atrash was killed by soldiers in late October, 2015, after he had attacked them with a knife near a pedestrian checkpoint down the street from the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.
Hadeel Hashlamoun was shot after attempting to stab an Israeli soldier at an IDF check point in Hebron in September, 2015.
This is what Leahy is defending. Also signing on is Jim McDermott and James McGovern, who are in the same pro-terrorist category as Leahy. Also on board is radical leftist Chellie Pingree backed by the anti-Israel group, J Street, and retiring Rep. Sam Farr. Also signing on are career progressive caucusers Betsy McCollum and Raúl Grijalva who would just happily sign on to a letter proposing Stalin for a posthumous Model of Freedom award.
Andre Carson, a Muslim convert who has a history of appearing at Islamist pro-terrorist events and anti-Israel activism, is not a surprising signature.
But there are also a number of Congressional Black Caucus members here, Hank “Guam will tip over” Johnson, Eddie Bernice Johnson and Eleanor Holmes Norton.
This is not just an anti-Israel letter. It’s a pro-terrorist letter. It covertly advocates on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood and its contents were no doubt formed and shaped by Brotherhood activists in America.
The Capitol in Washington is illuminated during a thunderstorm with the rotunda of the Russell Senate Office Building reflected on the rain-covered windows, late Wednesday afternoon, Feb. 24, 2016. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Leading foreign policy voices in Congress say they are preparing to fight against an Obama administration effort to provide Iran unprecedented access to U.S. financial resources as part of an expanded package meant to address new demands from the Islamic Republic’s for greater economic concessions, according to several conversations between the Washington Free Beacon and top lawmakers.
The Obama administration is currently exploring new options to grant Iran more sanctions relief than promised under the comprehensive nuclear agreement reached last year, just days after Iran’s Supreme Leader gave a speech accusing the United States of interfering with Iranian banking.
Top foreign policy voices in Congress told the Free Beacon in recent days that they are exploring a range of responses if the Obama administration goes through with reported plans to grant Iran further concessions beyond the purview of the nuclear deal, which dismantled key nuclear-related U.S. sanctions against Iran. At least part of this action could violate current U.S. laws, they said.
The planned concessions could include access to the U.S. dollar and financial markets, which the Obama administration promised would never take place under the deal, according to recent disclosures first reported by the Associated Press.
The Iranian government has recently heightened complaints that it is not being granted enough relief from international economic sanctions as a result of the recently implemented nuclear deal.
The Obama administration’s latest move to placate the Iranians comes on the heels of a Free Beacon report last week disclosing that U.S. officials engaged in secret talks with Iran for years before agreeing in January to pay it nearly $2 billion in taxpayer funds.
The reports have generated harsh responses from lawmakers, who say that the administration’s plans would endanger American economic influence and put the entire international financial system at risk from Iran’s illicit finance and money laundering activities.
“Any administration effort to get foreign financial institutions or foreign-based clearing houses to enable Iran’s terror-sponsoring regime to conduct transactions in U.S. dollars ignores American laws and the Financial Action Task Force,” Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) told the Free Beacon.
“Such an effort would benefit Iran’s terror financiers while fundamentally undermining the USA PATRIOT ACT 311 finding that Iran’s entire financial sector is a jurisdiction of primary money laundering concern,” Kirk said.
It would also undermine “the Financial Action Task Force’s ongoing calls for international countermeasures to protect financial sectors from Iran’s terrorist financing,” explained Kirk, who is backing a new effort in Congress to increase sanctions on Iran as a result of its recent ballistic missile tests, which violate United Nations resolutions.
Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, warned that the Obama administration’s latest move could set the stage for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, or IRGC, to gain a foothold in the U.S. economy.
“As if a windfall of over $100 billion in sanctions relief was too small, and the massive cash influx into Iran from new business deals too paltry, President Obama appears to be looking for ways to make further concessions to Iran,” said Pompeo, who also has backed new legislation to sanction Iran. “This would be comical if it wasn’t so dangerous.”
“American and international businesses can’t ignore the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ vast control of the Iranian economy and the threat Iranian banks pose to the international financial system,” Pompeo continued in a statement to the Free Beacon.
“In contrast with the absurd policies of the Obama administration, I work with my colleagues in Congress to protect America’s national security interests—just as we have in response to Iran’s recent ballistic missile tests.”
Pompeo is independently investigating the Obama administration’s recent $1.7 billion payment to Iran, which he and others viewed as a “ransom payment” for the Islamic Republic’s recent release of several captured Americans.
Other longtime Iran critics in Congress also expressed concern over administration efforts to provide Iran with even more economic freedom.
“Further sanctions relief would mark the death knell for U.S. sanctions and would represent a boon to the Iranian regime and its Revolutionary Guard Corp,” Rep. Ron DeSantis, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Free Beacon. “The lengths to which the Obama administration is willing to go to empower Iran is breathtaking.”
Rep. Peter Roskam (R., Ill.) explained that the “administration has lost all credibility on Iran” as a result of its efforts to accommodate Iranian demands.
“President Obama and Secretary Kerry have played the pied piper so many times now,” Roskam told the Free Beacon. “Western companies have to make the determination themselves whether or not they want to make their employees and shareholders complicit in funding terrorism.”
When asked to comment on concerns in Congress, a State Department official told the Free Beacon that it is aware of lawmaker requests for more information on “additional sanctions relief.”
The official added that as long as Iran continues to adhere to the nuclear agreement, the United States “will continue” to do the same.
Obama administration officials first guaranteed last year that Iran would not be permitted to conduct foreign transactions in dollars. This promise, however, is being reevaluated as the administration seeks to keep Iran from walking away from the nuclear deal.
Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told lawmakers Tuesday that the United States military currently is not prepared or capable across all the service branches of addressing the threats facing the country.
Dunford gave his assessment of the military’s readiness while testifying before the House Armed Services Committee alongside Defense Secretary Ash Carter on the fiscal year 2017 proposed defense budget.
Rep. Mac Thornberry (R., Texas), chair of the committee, first listed evidence he has heard from other senior military officers to illustrate how the military does not have sufficient readiness capabilities across the services.
“Let me just offer a handful of other quotes on the record,” Thornberry told Dunford. “[Marine Corps Commandant] Gen. [Robert] Neller said, ‘Our aviation units are currently unable to meet our training and mission requirements, primarily due to Ready Basic Aircraft shortfalls.’ [Army Chief of Staff] Gen. [Mark] Milley and Gen. [John] Allen have testified [that] less than one-third of Army forces are at acceptable forces of readiness. The readiness of the United States Army is not at a level that is appropriate for what the American people would expect to defend them.”
Thornberry then referenced Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James’ testimony from last week in which she said that “less than half our combat forces are ready for a high-end fight… the Air Force is the smallest, oldest, and least ready force across the full spectrum of operations in our history.”
“Do you agree that we have a significant readiness problem across the services, especially for the wide variety of contingencies that we’ve got to face?” Thornberry asked.
“Chairman, I do, and I think those are accurate reflections of the force as a whole,” Dunford said. “From my perspective, there’s really three issues: There are the resources necessary to address the readiness issue, there’s time, and then there’s operational tempo.”
Dunford said that the readiness problem is the result of several years of an “unstable fiscal environment” combined with an “extraordinarily high operational tempo,” or rate of military actions.
The general warned it will take many years to dig out of this situation, but said he is satisfied that the FY 2017 budget meets the fiscal requirements of each service for readiness.
The U.S. cannot buy its way out of the readiness problem this year, Dunford said, because of time and the growing need to deploy resources quickly.
He added that the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps will not be sufficiently ready to counter the challenges they need to until around fiscal year 2020, and the Air Force likely will not reach that point until fiscal year 2028.
Beyond resources, time, and operational tempo, Dunford explained that depot-level maintenance has been back-logged in Marine aviation, and likely in other branches as well, contributing to the delay in reaching full readiness.
“I think it’s important for us and for y’all to continue to not only watch this issue but really understand down deeper what’s happening,” Thornberry said. “Statistics are one thing, but you talk to these folks eyeball to eyeball, and the sense of frustration and concern is very evident.”
The military has been steadily downsized over the course of the Obama administration, with the number of active-duty ships in the Navy reduced to pre-World War I levels and the Marine Corps the smallest it has been since the Korean War in the early 1950s. The size of the Army has been reduced as well.
Last Week’s House Judiciary Committee discussion of a bill requesting the State Department evaluate classifying the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization showcased the confirmation bias of the bill’s Democratic opponents on the panel.
Numerous examples of ties between the international Muslim Brotherhood and terrorist groups like Hamas and al-Qaida peppered the original draft of the bill introduced by Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla.
However, Ranking Member Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., made the oft-repeated assertion the organization had sworn off violence.
Conyers asserted that the Brotherhood had become a “non-violent religious and social service organization” and that Diaz-Balart’s bill promotes so-called “Islamophobia.”
“Before rushing to conclusions that can lead to unknown and unintended consequences, our committee should consider the facts that pertain to this complex organization,” Conyers said.
He pointed to testimony given in a 2011hearing but much of what was said there undermines Conyers’ premise the Brotherhood is “non-violent.”
For example, Washington Institute Executive Director Robert Sotloff testified that the Muslim Brotherhood is far from “an Egyptian version of the March of Dimes,” whose orientation was fundamentally humanitarian.
“Should the Brotherhood achieve political power, it will almost certainly use that power to transform Egypt into a very different place … A more realistic situation would see deeper and more systemic Islamization of society, including the potential for a frightening growth of sectarianism between Muslims and Copts and even deepening intra-Muslim conflict between Salafis and Sufis,” Sotloff said, accurately predicting the divisive nature of the Brotherhood’s rule before it was ousted in July 2013.
Similarly, another person who testified before the subcommittee cautioned against falling victim to the Brotherhood’s semantics when it comes to terrorism.
“Just because the MB opposes al-Qaeda does not mean that they agree with us on the definition of terrorism,” Tarek Masoud of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government told the committee. “For example, they view both Hamas and Hezbollah as freedom fighters whose acts of violence are legitimate forms of resistance against what they see as Israeli occupation. In August 2006, former Muslim Brotherhood leader Mahdi Akef even declared that he was ready to send 10,000 (ten thousand) Brothers to fight alongside Hezbollah in its war against Israel. He didn’t, of course. But the sentiment reveals the gulf between us and the Brotherhood on this issue.”
The House bill also includes the 2011 assessment from then-FBI Director Robert Mueller: “I can say at the outset of that elements of the Muslim Brotherhood both here and overseas have supported terrorism.”
Conyers’ effort to characterize the Brotherhood as a “a predominately non-violent religious political and social service organization” ignores the repeated involvement of Brotherhood-linked charities in terrorism financing, ranging from the Union of Good to the Holy Land Foundation. The Holy Land Trial exposed a Hamas-support network in the United States created by the Muslim Brotherhood which included the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a branch.
Conyers ignores statements by the Brotherhood in the past year, including a Jan. 27 call for a “long, uncompromising jihad” against the Egyptian government, as noted in Diaz-Balart’s bill.
Groups calling themselves “Revolutionary Punishment” and “Popular Resistance” have carried out attacks against Egyptian police stations and businesses with support from Brotherhood-connected social media accounts. These accounts have been promoted by U.S. based pro-Brotherhood activists.
The legislation included other numerous specific examples of Brotherhood support for funding or engaging in violent jihad since its founding in 1928 by Egyptian schoolteacher Hasan al-Banna.
“…Jihad in its literal significance means to put forth one’s maximal effort in word and deed,” Al-Banna said in an undated speech. “[I]in the Sacred Law it is the slaying of the unbelievers, and related connotations, such as beating them, plundering their wealth, destroying their shrines, and smashing their idols … it is obligatory on us to begin fighting with them after transmitting the invitation [to embrace Islam], even if they do not fight against us.”
Al-Banna also stated that the “people of the Book” should be fought until they pay jizyah, a tax mandated by the Quran paid by Christians and Jews to an Islamic state in exchange for keeping their lives and not embracing Islam.
It notes that the U.S. government previously listed Hamas, the Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch, and Lajnat al-Daawa, the social wing of Kuwait’s branch of the Brotherhood, as terrorist entities.
Lajnat al-Daawa’s reported involvement in terrorism financing on behalf of Osama bin Laden underscores the hollowness of the Brotherhood’s condemnation of al-Qaida. Ramzi Yousef, planner of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, architect of 9/11, each worked for Lajnat al-Daawa.
Numerous individual Brotherhood members with ties to al-Qaida who were previously sanctioned by the U.S. government as terrorists are mentioned in the bill. Among them; Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law, Mohammad Jamal Khalifa, served a senior member of the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Khalifa ran charitable offices on al-Qaida’s behalf in the Philippines, including an office for the Saudi-controlled International Islamic Relief Organization. He also established a charity called the International Relations and Information Center in the Philippines, which was the primary funding mechanism for Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Yousef’s 1995 “Bojinka” plot to blow up American airliners over the Pacific.
Diaz-Balart’s bill additionally points out that the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood’s militias joined forces with Ansar al-Sharia, the al-Qaida linked militia responsible for the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.
In opposing the bill, Conyers said it unfairly paints all Brotherhood members as terrorists. He dismissed the measure as “Islamophobia [which] may be good politics … but it certainly is not good policy.” Classifying the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization had more to do with fear than keeping Americans safe, he said.
But existing groups on the State Department’s terror list. such as Hizballah and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), also actively engage in social services or serve in parliament.
Hizballah’s social services give it strong support among poor Shiites in Lebanon. It also has 14 seats in Lebanon’s parliament and considerable political clout. Likewise, FARC has a significant social-service component.
(The views expressed in this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or any of its other editors. — DM)
President Obama claimed to be the most open and transparent president ever but did not follow through. During her term as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton showed her persistent openness and transparency to friend and foe alike.
Right.
Hillary demonstrated her openness and transparency to the entire world — friend and foe alike — through her use of an unsecured home-brew server for e-mails containing classified national security information. As of late December, more than 1,200 e-mails found on Hillary’s server had been deemed classified. More continued to be found.
That indicates a level of classification beyond even “top secret,” the label previously given to two emails found on her server, and brings even more scrutiny to the presidential candidate’s handling of the government’s closely held secrets.
As of January 29th, at least twenty-two of the most recently discovered e-mails were top secret and contained such damaging information that not even redacted copies can be released to members of the Congress.
With such undiscriminating openness to our enemies, Hillary demonstrated unprecedented impartiality. By doing so, she helped to dispel vicious rumors that America helps only its few remaining friends. The State Department, now under the direction of John Kerry, was unwilling to extend the same courtesy to the Congress, doubtless a greater enemy than any foreign nation. This may have been hard for him to do. But then, sometimes it’s hard to be John Kerry.
Hillary’s principal opponent in the race for the Democrat presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders, merely says that to be true socialists we must share everything. Hillary does more than talk; she shares.
A vote for Hillary is a vote for openness. Due to her exceptional devotion to non-discriminatory transparency, our enemies will love us even more, perhaps even until death do us part.
Among the many way one can get a waiver is an exception for individuals who traveled to Iran “for legitimate business-related purposes” after the nuclear deal was signed.
So the new restrictions made Kerry’s new best pals in Iran angry, and they strong-armed us, and the administration gave them what they wanted. Great.
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Less than two months after the terror attacks in San Bernardino, which involved one terrorist who was here on a visa waiver, President Obama has made it easier to travel to the United States from terror hotspots around the globe.
The revised requirements announced Thursday pertain to changes passed by Congress in the Visa Waiver Program.
Lawmakers had sought new restrictions to tighten up the program – which allows visa-free travel for residents of eligible countries — in order to prevent Europeans who have joined ISIS from entering the United States. Under the newly passed Visa Waiver Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015, nationals of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Sudan as well as other travelers who have visited those countries since Mar. 1, 2011 now must apply for a visa in order to travel to the U.S.
The administration implemented those changes Thursday — but with some changes of its own.
The changes are that they are making it easier to get waivers. Waiver meaning you won’t need a new visa to enter this country, even if you came by way of ISIS zones, as long as you meet certain criteria.
Among the many way one can get a waiver is an exception for individuals who traveled to Iran “for legitimate business-related purposes” after the nuclear deal was signed.
House Judiciary Committee Chair Bob Goodlatte decried the move, saying “The Obama Administration is essentially rewriting the law by blowing wide open a small window of discretion that Congress gave it for law enforcement and national security reasons,” according to Fox News.
ISIS and other terror groups rely heavily on their unconventional and diffuse pool of resources and recruits. This is why the “lone wolf” definition of terror is sorely in need of update. That they will take advantage of this easing of the rules is hardly speculative. Nor would it be difficult. It’s another example of the Obama administration playing politics with American security.
Which politics?
The new restrictions had previously been criticized by the Iranian government which suggested the U.S. might be violating the nuclear deal by penalizing legitimate business travel to the country.
So the new restrictions made Kerry’s new best pals in Iran angry, and they strong-armed us, and the administration gave them what they wanted. Great.
(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
Obama keeps telling us what America isnot. What does He think she is? Does He think that Obama’s America is America, or that His supporters are what America is? Does He think they make America great? Will America become acceptable to Obama, and hence “who we are,” only after He or His successor finishes her fundamental transformation?
By virtue of the now-implemented Iran nuke “deal,” Iran’s possession of an atomic and/or hydrogen bomb will be delayed for a few years unless she cheats (as in the past), reneges on the “deal” or out-sources nuke development to her long term partner, North Korea.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is now reaping the benefits of more than $100 billion in immediate sanctions relief plus a settlement of Iranian claims amounting to $1.7 billion.
Secretary of State John Kerry said today that the settlement is $400 million debt and $1.3 billion in interest dating back to the Islamic revolution. That’s separate from the sanctions windfall Iran will receive.
Iran will also benefit on a long-term basis from trade with countries formerly prohibited by sanctions.
Back in June 2015, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei had outlined the general policies of the country’s 6th quinquennial development plan.
On defense and security, the proclamation necessitated an increase in Iran’s defense capabilities at the level of a regional power in order to fulfill the national interests by allocating at least 5 percent of the national budget to boosting the defense power. [Emphasis added.]
With increased funding, Iran will be able to increase its already substantial support for Shiite terrorism throughout the Middle East; it will likely do so.
Iranians continue to experience Islamic human rights. Here’s a link to an article titled The Real War on Women in a Nightmarish Islamic Stateby Dr. Majid Rafizadeh. An Iranian-American political scientist and scholar, he is the president of the International American Council and serves on the board of the Harvard International Review at Harvard University.
When it comes to executions, girls are systematically more vulnerable due to the Islamist penal code of Sharia law.
Let’s take a look at the Islamist state of Iran, which creates its laws from the legal codes of Sharia and Quran. The first type of discrimination is related to age: girls are held criminally accountable at the maturity age of 9 Lunar years. (This will automatically put girls at a higher risk of execution by the court.)
Iranian ruling politicians hold the highest record when it comes to the most executions per capita in the world. Intriguingly, in the last two years that the so-called moderate, Hassan Rouhani, has been in office, there have been more than 2000 executions conducted in Iran. That is nearly 3-4 executions a day.
More importantly, Iranian leaders are also the largest executioner of women and female juveniles. Some of these executions were carried out on the mullahs’ charge of ‘Moharebeh’ (enmity with Allah), or waging war against Allah, ifsad-i Fil Arz (Sowing Corruption on Earth), or Sab-i Nabi (Insulting the Prophet). [Emphasis added.]
There are three methods of execution for women and female juveniles: 1. Stoning 2. Public hanging 3. Shooting. Some women are also beaten so severely in the prison that they die before reaching the execution. Shooting, which is the fastest method of the three for execution, has not been used since 2008. Instead, the most common method to execute women is public hanging or stoning. Some of these women are flogged right before they are hanged. Public hanging not only imposes fears in the society but also aims at dehumanizing and controlling women as second-class citizens. According to the Islamist penal code of Iran, women offenses are classified as: Hadd, Diyyih, Ta`zir, and Qisas. [Emphasis added.]
Please read the entire article. Isn’t it heartwarming that “we” are giving even more than a mere $100 billion to Iran? Perhaps some of the new money can be used to buy sharper stones and new devices for hangings. How about some new torture devices?
Islam, The Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates
The Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas-affiliated Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) claims to represent Muslims in America. They do represent those who favor terrorism and despise human rights (in the name of which they ironically claim to act).
[T]he Council on American-Islamic Relations, is a prominent Islamic group, but which has a long history of involvement with extremist and terrorist causes. In 2009, during the Holy Land Foundation terror financing trial, U.S. District Court Judge Jorge Solis concluded that, “The government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR… with the Islamic Association for Palestine, and with Hamas.” [Emphasis added.]
During the trial, CAIR was designated an “unindicted co-conspirator.” As a result of CAIR’s apparent links to a terrorist movement, the Justice Department in 2009 announced a ban on working with CAIR. The FBI also severed relations.
[F]or the past seven years, the Obama White House has opened its doors to the entire spectrum of radical Islamist groups, just like CAIR. These groups have rationalized the actions of Islamic terrorist groups that have killed Americans, warned American Muslims against cooperating with law enforcement, smeared genuine Muslim moderates like Zuhdi Jasser and Asra Nomani as traitors and accused anyone who dared to utter the term “radical Islam” as “Islamophobic.” These are the groups that the White House should have marginalized. The fact that Obama legitimized radical Islamist groups will be his real legacy. [Emphasis added.]
Very few American Muslims, however, seem to feel that CAIR is a legitimate ambassador for American Islam. According to a 2011 Gallup poll, about 88% of American Muslims said that CAIR does not represent them. Muslims all over the world, in fact, apparently do not think CAIR is a moderate or legitimate Muslim group: in 2014, the United Arab Emirates, a pious Muslim state, designated CAIR a terrorist organization, along with dozens of other Muslim Brotherhood organizations.
In reality, American Muslims are extremely diverse, and no single group can claim to speak on their collective behalf. American Islam comprises dozens of different religious sects and political movements, many of which advocate distinctly different ideas. But for Islamist bodies such as CAIR, it suits their agenda if American Muslims are portrayed as a monolithic community. If American Muslims can be seen as homogenous, then a group such as CAIR has a better claim to represent their interests.
Even CAIR’s own research, however, undermines their claim to speak on behalf of American Muslims. A 2011 report reveals that a majority of American mosques are not affiliated with any American Islamic body.
Addressing a conference in 2000, Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi, a Muslim cleric and secretary general of the Italian Muslim Assembly, explained that, “[CAIR] is a Muslim Brotherhood front organization. It works in the United States as a lobby against radio, television and print media journalists who dare to produce anything about Islam that is at variance with their fundamental agenda. CAIR opposes diversity in Islam.”
In truth, CAIR only speaks on behalf of a small extremist ideology that, as discovered by federal prosecutors, emerged across the United States during the 1990s out of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Although CAIR does not represent American Muslims, it managed, before the Holy Land Foundation terror trial in 2008, to persuade a great many people that it did. Enough time has passed that CAIR seems to believe it can try this move once again.
state that Congress believes the Muslim Brotherhood fits the State Department’s criteria of a Foreign Terrorist Organization. The Secretary of State would be required to designate the Brotherhood within 60 days or to provide a detailed report explaining why it does not. Three U.S.-based Brotherhood entities named in the bill are CAIR, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT). [Emphasis added.]
The House version of the bill (HR3892) was introduced by Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) with Reps. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Randy K. Weber (R-TX), Diane Black (R-TN) and Mike Pompeo (R-KS) as original cosponsors. They are now joined by Reps. Steve King (R-IA); Steven Palazzo (R-MS); Kay Granger (R-TX); Jim Jordan (R-OH); Steve Stivers (R-OH); Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA); Ilena Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL); Charles W. Dent (R-PA); Bill Johnson (R-OH) and David A. Trott (R-MI).
HR3892 was referred to the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security on December 4, 2015. Two cosponsors, Rep. Gohmert and Rep. Trott, sit on that subcommittee.
The Senate version of the bill (S2230) was introduced by presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and later cosponsored by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT). It was referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on November 3. Two of Senator Cruz’s presidential rivals, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) sit on that committee and have not taken a position on the bill.
Although the bill has yet to earn bi-partisan support at this early stage, it is supported by members of Congress from different spectrums of the Republican Party. It includes endorsers of the presidential campaigns of Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush and John Kasich and not only supporters of Ted Cruz.
If enacted by the Congress, Obama will almost certainly veto it. If He signs it, He will ignore or bypass it as He often does.
Britain recently declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. Here are thirteen quotes from the British Government’s review and Prime Minister Cameron’s official statement:
1. “The Muslim Brotherhood’s foundational texts call for the progressive moral purification of individuals and Muslim societies and their eventual political unification in a Caliphate under Sharia law. To this day the Muslim Brotherhood characterizes Western societies and liberal Muslims as decadent and immoral. It can be seen primarily as a political project.”
2. “Aspects of Muslim Brotherhood ideology and tactics, in this country and overseas, are contrary to our values and have been contrary to our national interests and our national security.”
3. “From its foundation the Muslim Brotherhood organized itself into a secretive ‘cell’ structure, with an elaborate induction and education program for new members…This clandestine, centralized and hierarchical structure persists to this day.”
4. “The Hamas founding charter claims that they are the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Muslim Brotherhood treat them as such. In the past ten years support for Hamas (including in particular funding) has been an important priority for the MB in Egypt and the MB international network.”
5. “From at least the 1950s the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood also developed an international network, within and beyond the Islamic world. Europe became an important base for the growing Muslim Brotherhood global network.”
6. “The wider international network of the Muslim Brotherhood now performs a range of functions. It promotes Muslim Brotherhood ideology (including through communications platforms), raises and invests funds, and provides a haven for members of the Brotherhood who have left their country of origin to continue promoting Brotherhood activity.”
7. “[F]or the most part, the Muslim Brotherhood have preferred non violent incremental change on the grounds of expediency, often on the basis that political opposition will disappear when the process of Islamization is complete. But they are prepared to countenance violence—including, from time to time, terrorism—where gradualism is ineffective.”
8. “Muslim Brotherhood organizations and associated in the UK have neither openly nor consistently refuted the literature of Brotherhood member Sayyid Qutb which is known to have inspired people (including in this country) to engage in terrorism.”
9. “[The review] concluded that it was not possible to reconcile these [MB] views with the claim made by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in their evidence to the review that ‘the Muslim Brotherhood has consistently adhered to peaceful means of opposition, renouncing all forms of violence throughout its existence.’”
10. “In the 1990s the Muslim Brotherhood and their associates established public facing and apparently national organizations in the UK to promote their views. None were openly identified with the Muslim Brotherhood and membership of the Muslim Brotherhood remained (and still remains) a secret.”
11. “[MB fronts] became politically active, notably in connection with Palestine and Iraq, and promoted candidates in national and local elections…sought and obtained a dialogue with Government….were active members in a security dialogue with the police.”
12. “The Muslim Brotherhood have been publicly committed to political engagement in this country. Engagement with Government has at times been facilitated by what appeared to be a common agenda against al Qaida and (at least in the UK) militant Salafism. But this engagement did not take into account of Muslim Brotherhood support for a proscribed terrorist group and its views about terrorism which, in reality, are quite different from our own.”
13. “Senior Muslim Brotherhood figures and associated have justified attacks against coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
The linked article goes on to note that
The U.S. government, without even conducting any kind of review of its own, issued a statement to the Investigative Project on Terrorism rejecting any ban or even any “de-legitimizing” of the Brotherhood at all. [Emphasis added.]
Do the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates represent Obama? Are they or Obama “what we are?” I don’t think so and hope not.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali and reformation of Islam
In Heretic (which I reviewed here), Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote,
For years, we have spent trillions on waging wars against “terror” and “extremism” that would have been much better spent protecting Muslim dissidents and giving them the necessary platforms and resources to counter that vast network of Islamic centers, madrassas, and mosques which has been largely responsible for spreading the most noxious forms of Islamic fundamentalism. For years, we have treated the people financing that vast network — the Saudis, the Qataris, and the now repentant Emiratis — as our allies. In the midst of all our efforts at policing, surveillance, and even military action, we in the West have not bothered to develop an effective counternarrative because from the outset we have denied that Islamic extremism is in any way related to Islam. We persist in focusing on the violence and not on the ideas that give rise to it. [Emphasis added.]
Here is a video of which Hirsi Ali was the executive producer. It features Muslim and former-Muslim women discussing Islam and the Islam-mandated male domination of women.
Here’s Part II of Honor Diaries:
Here’s a video characterizing Hirsi Ali as an “Islamophobe.”
Along with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Azeezah Kanji — the featured speaker in the above video — has been very active in disparaging Hirsi Ali and Honor Diaries. Like CAIR, she has ties to the Obama White House and was named a “Champion of Change” by the White House in 2011. What changes in Islam does Ms. Kanji champion? None, apparently, of those intrinsic to it.
Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the CAIR, condemned Hirsi Ali as “one of the worst of the worst of the Islam haters in America, not only in America but worldwide.”
On becoming a U.S. Citizen
Who better represents American values? Hirsi Ali, once a refugee from Somalia and a proud citizen of the United States since April 25, 2013, or President Obama? In the immediately linked Wall Street Journal article, she offers suggestions on American immigration with which I plan to deal in a subsequent post. In the meantime, here is her 2014 address at the William F. Buckley Program at Yale University on the clash of civilizations. If you have not yet watched it, please do so. If you have watched it, please do so again. I just did. Every time I watch it, there is something I had not previously considered.
Conclusions
To Obama and His acolytes, Islam is the religion of peace and tolerance; the Islamic State, its equally non-peaceful and intolerant franchisees and other comparable terrorist organizations are “not Islamic.” If “not Islamic,” what are they?
Despite Obama’s many statements and gestures, He has yet to convince any Islamic terrorist group that it is not Islamic. He has convinced them only that He is ignorant of Islam, a liar or both. Perhaps He needs a better joke writer.
was very striking for the one-sidedness and disproportion of the president’s concern for religious suffering.
President Obama worried that “politicians insult Muslims, whether abroad or fellow citizens.”
But he couldn’t bring himself to worry aloud about the Christians being driven from Middle Eastern countries, the churches being burned from Nigeria to Malaysia, or the 22 Coptic Christians who were beheaded on video on a beach in Libya by Islamic supremacists.
Will our next president at least make a concerted effort to un-transform Obama’s America? Will he name and fight our enemies, foreign and domestic? Or will he simply “go with the flow” and do none of the above. Much depends on who it is and on the composition of the Congress.
During the Democrat Party debate on January 17th, Hillary Clinton “linked herself to the president again and again. And again.” An Obama clone to continue Obama’s fundamental transformation of America is the opposite of what we need. Nor will merely “fixing” broken parts of the governmental apparatus with duct tape and bailing wire be satisfactory. As I wrote last September, To bring America back we need to break some stuff.
In later posts in this series, I hope to deal with immigration, race relations, the ways in which Obama is distorting the Constitution, the decline of education and Obama’s very foreign foreign policy.
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