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February 10, 2011The Secular Muslim Brotherhood?
Thursday was not a particularly good one for James Clapper, U.S. Director of National Intelligence. Speaking to a House Intelligence Committee hearing, he weighed in on his thoughts on Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, describing it as a "largely secular" organization.
Even with a near-immediate clarification release from his office, Clapper's statement prompted derision of both the restrained and the angry variety. NBC's Richard Engel called it a "head snap" moment. Perhaps the mildest response I could find was Jake Tapper's comments on ABC News, stating simply: "The Muslim Brotherhood is quite obviously not a secular organization."
What we've learned over the past several months is that there is a sizable portion of people who would like to claim otherwise. Tom Joscelyn did a fairly thorough job of debunking Bruce Reidel's claims about the Brotherhood, and the Op-Ed from Brotherhood member Abdel Moneim Abou el-Fotouh on Wednesday has mostly fallen on deaf ears.
Let's hope the backlash against Clapper soon leads to further investigation of the Brotherhood's international presence. A recent piece in Newsweek really buried the lede on this front, as Ricochet's Claire Berlinski noticed:
Page two, paragraph four, no further elaboration:NEWSWEEK has obtained an extensive dossier, compiled last year by Arab analysts with close ties to Saudi intelligence, that argues that a well-financed global Muslim Brotherhood network uses “moderate-seeming politicians to further its extremist agenda” as far away as Malaysia.
You think they plan to share the details of this? Or just to mention coyly that they have it?
A good catch, that. Berlinski points to the fact that a Saudi investigation previously reported by CNN allegedly turned up all sorts of signs of Muslim Brotherhood money flowing around the world to key politicians and leaders - among them Malaysia's opposition candidate Anwar Ibrahim (is it any coincidence his rhetoric has turned more strident over the past year?). The network includes legitimate charities and candidates, alongside "People close to the senior leadership of the Taliban [who] live in Saudi Arabia and send money back."
The nine-page summary of the secret report states that the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist political group present in many Muslim countries, was trying "through its many affiliated charities and organizations -- often with the funding of unwitting private Saudi citizens -- to spread its influence by providing support for candidates in Islamic democracies."
Whatever lessons we take from the Egypt experience, a need for more knowledge about the Brotherhood is necessary. As I wrote last month in advance of the fracturing scene in Egypt, the triumph of fundamentalists would have an incredibly destructive effect not just on Egypt but on her neighbors and U.S. interests.
There's no question that Khaled Abu Toameh's piece from early January has to be read now in the light of a powerful prediction about Egypt's course to this moment:
Mubarak's repressive measures and the absence of a real democracy is playing into the hands of the Islamic fundamentalists, who now appear to be more determined than ever to seize control of Egypt.The Egyptian government's clampdown on secular reformists, including human rights activists and journalists, is driving many Egyptians toward the open arms of Muslim Brotherhood and other fundamentalist groups. These extremists find fertile soil among disgruntled Egyptians and Arabs who are yearning for regime change.
The United States desperately needs people in leadership who understand the Brotherhood and other fundamentalist groups - and understanding threats, if and when they exist. Describing such groups as "largely secular" is not something even their advocates would claim. Whatever that statement is, it is not the words of someone who knows anywhere near as much as a director of national intelligence needs to know.
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