Engaging the Brotherhood
A few last thoughts before I give it a rest for a time.
I began this series with reflections on the bombing in Alexandria. As I noted, to the shame of the American media, by far the best in-depth coverage of the event was on Al Jazeera. I pointed out the remarks of Alia Brahimi, who correctly noted the "enabling environment" in Egypt. She proposed that this environment was stoked by the exclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood from the political process. This, she suggested, was forcing it underground and radicalizing it.
She may be right--to an extent. But anyone who has reflected deeply on the Brotherhood will grasp that "bringing the Brotherhood into the political process" is a strategy fraught with risk.
It may surprise you to know that I don't find the arguments for engaging with the Muslim Brotherhood always and entirely stupid. My call here is not to go to war with the Muslim Brotherhood. It's to understand what we we are engaging with and, if engaging, be aware of its history and the ideology of its key figures--that is to say, to understand that we are probably not dealing with a simple "democracy movement," or "a network of Islamic charities" or "non-violent, moderate Muslims." There's a lot more to it.
I suggest as well that we listen carefully to those in the region--Muslims, almost overwhelmingly--who don't want the Muslim Brotherhood anywhere near the political process. It is not necessarily because those who fear them are shameless, repressive autocrats. (Although frankly, it quite often is: That's why we don't need amateurs making our policy here. This region is not easy to understand.)
Here's a point I would stress. I've been watching the AKP closely since I moved to Turkey, and of course I'm well aware that it is often described as an Islamist party, and that it's not difficult to find evidence that some of its key figures are steeped in an ideology quite a bit like that of the Brotherhood, or indeed have direct ties to it--look at the close links between the AKP and the IHH, for example. Yet I do not for a moment advocate "not engaging" with the AKP. Why not? Because the AKP is not just an ideology; it is a political party comprised of individuals. Not all are committed Islamists--far from it. Indeed, I suspect many aren't particularly doctrinaire or faithful at all. They've just recognized that there's a lot of political mileage to be gained from nurturing, stoking and exploiting Islamist sentiment--and that the benefits of doing this at least in the short term outweigh the negative consequences, particularly since few in the West are willing loudly to deplore it when they do.
There are many things going on here, politically, beyond "Islamism versus secularism"--"corruption versus rule of law" being the most important. There is a distinct Turkish culture and national history here that is unique in the Islamic world. All of this needs to be taken into account when formulating policy toward Turkey under the AKP.
In power, the party has been forced to make the compromises every political party must to stay in power. It has had to face the reality of roads that must be built, inflation that must be controlled, terrorists that must be neutralized, voters who must be persuaded to pull the lever for them at the next election. Above all, the individual members of the AKP seem to me to want what most people want: money. This has corrupted the party quite thoroughly. One would not usually celebrate a party's corruption, and I don't, but it suggests something about Islamist movements.
This does not mean the AKP's Islamism--or more properly, the Islamism of some members of the AKP--is benign. But it does mean the party is often in contact with reality and can be motivated by the ordinary things that motivate most people. It needs things from voters who are skeptical of it; it needs things from other countries; it cares what other countries think of it, it cares what voters think. We can and should engage with the AKP, but in an intelligent way, without romanticizing or excusing it, or giving it cover when it indulges in insanity.
There is enough democracy and rule of law in place, culturally, in Turkey, that the genuine Islamists in the AKP would not have an easy time turning this country into a theocracy--and they certainly haven't thus far. The best protection against Islamism here is the strengthening of Turkey's institutions: its legal system, its educational system, the press. The more who have a stake in Turkey's functioning as a modern country with real civil rights for all and a fair, robust free-market economy, the less vulnerable the country will be to the lunatic fringe of the AKP or the lunatic impulses of its leadership. But the AKP needs to understand that the West is not stupid--we grasp what's going on here, and there will be heavy costs in international legitimacy associated with extremist indulgence.
The West's policy in this regard has been incoherent. Certain messages should have gone out to the AKP long ago: Qaradawi is not welcome among civilized people. You can share a podium with him, or share a podium with world leaders of stature, but not both. You will be ostracized by civilized people, and shamed before your own, if you invite Qaradawi to Istanbul.
Instead, the British Foreign Office paid for Qaradawi's visit to Turkey.
Similarly, it is absolutely correct to say that the Muslim Brotherhood is not one single thing. Its members do not all share exactly the same ideology. There may be some with whom we can do business; there probably are. It may benefit us--and the region--to do so at times. But carefully, and with the full awareness that handling dangerous explosives is a job for people who really know what they're doing.
Barry Rubin has brought out a new book about the Muslim Brotherhood that's worth reading. It's a detailed, thoughtful, truly expert exploration of the organization and policies of different Brotherhood groups in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Gaza and North America. I exchanged e-mails with him recently about the Alexandria bombing. "You ask," he wrote, "is keeping the Muslim Brotherhood out of the political system pushing them underground? There is also the opposite question: Is being too easy on the Muslim Brotherhood (along with weakening the system in Egypt) going to make it bolder and more radical and more violent? I'd bet on the second. The first, after all has been going on for almost 60 years." We need to be aware of this possibility.
"Should we engage," is in fact the wrong question to ask. The question to ask is "Should we legitimize?" We do engage already, as Rubin noted. "Anyone who says that U.S. policymakers have erred by not distinguishing among Muslim Brotherhood groups is completely ignorant," he wrote to me. "In the past, the US government has met secretly with Syrian Brotherhood people because it sees them, rightly or wrongly, as potential allies against the Syrian regime. The US takes the strongest action against Hamas, which is a Brotherhood group, because it has engaged in terrorism but not against the Egyptians or Jordanians because they haven't."
He is understandably frustrated with calls to "engage the Brotherhood" that are in fact a masked call to promote, legitimize and support the Brotherhood. So am I. "It is amazing that such ignorant people--with no background whatsoever in dealing with anything about the Middle East in their entire careers--are given a hearing talking about things they know zero about."
I agree completely. Knowing something about these groups has got to be the starting point.
Here's another real authority on the subject, Lorenzo Vidino, who has extensively studied the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe: "Optimists" he remarks, "argue that in the past 30 years, the Muslim Brotherhood has gone through a process of autoreform ... through which they have embraced democratic ideals." (Our member AJK would obviously fall into the optimist school.) "Pessimists argue that the Brotherhood's aims have changed little throughout the movement's history and that the Brotherhood are simply engaged in a cleverly architected public relations campaign to dissimulate their real aims."
As Vidino points out, "intelligence agencies throughout Europe side firmly with the pessimists." To read those reports that have been made public is to understand exactly why.
Vidino makes another point that I think is critical to informing our policy: "Unlike Salafists and other radical trends, the Brothers take confrontational positions only when the benefits deriving from such stances are deemed to outweigh the negative consequences." This suggests a recommendation about how we need to react to the Brotherhood: When its members advocate radical anti-Westernism, anti-Semitism, support for terrorism, and misogyny--in any language!--or associate with figures such as Qaradawi, they must face negative consequences.
Negative consequences would include, at the very least, not being appointed the United States government's "Muslim outreach advisor," as Mazen Asbahi was, by President Obama.
I commend to you as well Alyssa Lapin's valuable work on the elevation to prominence of figures such as Asbahi and other Brotherhood-associated figures with very clear ties to terror-financing and radical ideologues in the United States. It's astonishing that we would do this--and it is not just Obama who has, by the way; it is grossly unfair to suggest this. Clinton and Bush made the same mistakes.
What possible incentive do members of these groups have to stop raising funds for terrorist groups, associating internationally with activists and officials who seek the United States' destruction, and producing reams upon reams of Islamist propaganda if figures such as Imam Siraj Wahhaj--a virulent ideologue who was, as Lapin notes, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing--are invited to deliver Islamic invocations in the US House of Representatives and the Senate? Does this not send a certain message, namely, that we are paying no attention whatsoever and you can get away with anything?
Incentives work--even among ideologues and extremists. That has to be the first key to our policy: showing that we do not positively reward insanity.
Let's start, at the very least, with that.
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Comments :
Jul '10
Re: Engaging the Brotherhood
Sounds like the CIA and DHS, for starters, are badly broken in this area. It can not help that this President and the previous President appear to have been willing to be led by the House of Saud in such matters. I do not imagine that having a Secretary of State with Hillary Clinton's level of experience and background is a big help, either.
If you keep this up, Claire, I'm going to have to pull the half dozen books on this topic that I have never gotten around to reading. Also, Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch has been tracking Muslim issues for years, albeit along a different vector, doing a good enough job that he is casually vilified by the Left. I would be curious if you have an opinion of his work.
I believe the Regime to be impervious to persuasion, but that the election cycle offers useful opportunities if the information can be got out as Pref. Rahe has noted. It is enough to know that the last two Presidents have endorsed the work of CAIR, a publicly exposed front for terrorists, to realize the American public sleeps soundly on this issue.
Sep '10
Re: Engaging the Brotherhood
Just one overly simplistic thought. If someone dressed in a sheet and claiming to be the Grand Po Pa of the KKK said they should be given a seat at the table because the 2011 KKK is not like the KKK of old he would be soundly rejected and anyone who did not reject him would be ridiculed. Why? Because the KKK is clearly a bigoted organization and anyone who voluntarily identifies with it is properly painted with this brush. The same, in my view, applies to the Brotherhood.
Oct '10
Re: Engaging the Brotherhood
But there are no suicide vests under those white sheets!
Jul '10
Re: Engaging the Brotherhood
Jim: While I agree with you, there is a counter-example out there. Bill Clinton led Tony Blair by the nose to bring the IRA into the political arena and end the bloodshed. Sinn Fein is in place as a political party under the Belfast Agreement of 98 thanks to Clintonian arm twisting and the bad old days are over, right?
Before the ink was dry on the Belfast Agreement, a group calling itself the Real IRA forms and resumes the troubles, this year alone there were over 25 incidents claimed by or attributed to them.
Sinn Fein is the second largest party in Northern Island, and, surprise, they are stalwart lefties.
So, no, I don't see much good in the efforts to legitimize the Muslim Brothers either.
Jul '10
Re: Engaging the Brotherhood
Speaking of the wages of engagement, Tammy Bruce of all people pointed me to the latest chapter in the story of CAIR. In response to various terror investigations around the country, CAIR has come out loudly against Muslims cooperating with the FBI here.
That should make the next CAIR run FBI Muslim sensitivity session more colorful than usual.