Obama’s Bad Brotherhood Bet. By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, February 21, 2013.
More on Morsi and Egypt here.
Tobin:
For the
last few months, conservative critics of the Obama administration’s foreign
policy have obsessed about its failure in Libya. The fiasco in Benghazi that
took the lives of four Americans including our ambassador deserved more media
scrutiny and Republicans are right to continue to demand answers about it. But
the unfolding disaster next door in Egypt is a far greater indication of the
way the president has blundered abroad than even that tragic episode. Obama’s
decision to force the Egyptian military to accept a Muslim Brotherhood
government in Cairo and Washington’s subsequent embrace of Mohamed Morsi’s
regime has materially aided the descent of the most populous Arab country into
the grip of an Islamist party. The Brotherhood regime is determined to
extinguish any hope of liberalization in Egypt and its drive to seize total
power there is a direct threat to regional stability and Middle East peace.
Rather
than using the leverage that the more than $1 billion in U.S. aid to Egypt
gives it, the administration has loyally stuck to Morsi despite his seizing of
powers that are comparable to those of deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak and his
efforts to violently repress the widespread dissatisfaction with his
government. There is no sign that anyone in the State Department or the White
House realizes that the U.S. bet on the Brotherhood is a disaster, but
yesterday’s column by one of the leading peddlers of conventional wisdom on
foreign policy ought to concern Morsi. If the Islamists have lost Thomas
Friedman, then there is at least a little hope that their campaign to swindle
American liberals into backing them is going to eventually crash.
In yesterday’s New York Times, Friedman
did something we haven’t seen much of in that newspaper: tell the truth about
the Brotherhood’s intentions and its ideological drive to transform Egypt.
While the paper’s news pages and fellow columnists like Nicholas Kristof have
bought into the baloney the Brotherhood has served up to foreign journalists
about their moderation and desire for democracy and progress, Friedman made it
clear that their tyrannical impulse is no aberration. Even more important, he
made it clear that the Obama administration’s apparent belief that they can
reinvent the modus vivendi that formally existed between the U.S. and Mubarak
with Morsi is a terrible mistake.
As
Friedman notes, the Brotherhood has prioritized the cleansing of non-Islamist
aspects of Egyptian culture over its supposed hope to reboot the economy. The
banning of the Belly Dancing Channel on Egyptian TV made for a comic lede for
Friedman’s column, but it is no joke, as it illustrates Morsi’s desire to turn
a multi-faceted society into another Iran.
Yet as
right as Friedman is about the current situation, his advice about the
Brotherhood having to change or fail misses the point about a movement that has
no intention of ever allowing power to slip from its hands. Friedman is right
that the Brotherhood’s version of political Islam will sink Egypt into poverty.
The problem is that they are no more willing or capable of becoming more
democratic or open-minded about non-Islamist culture than they are of ever
accepting peace with Israel.
Friedman
praises what he claims is an Obama administration decision to convey their
concerns about the direction of Egypt privately rather than publicly. He also
supports an apparent decision to invite Morsi to Washington for a visit where
he can try to charm the U.S. into keeping the flow of American taxpayer dollars
into his government’s coffers.
But the
more time the U.S. takes in conveying the message that it will not back an Egyptian
government intent on an Islamist kulturkampf, the less chance there will be
that it can influence events in Cairo. We already know what a bad bet Obama has
made in backing Morsi and the Brotherhood. It may already be too late to
reverse the damage that was done by the president’s feckless embrace of the
Islamists. If, as Friedman acknowledges, the direction the Brotherhood is
taking Egypt, and by extension the region, is one that can lead to chaos,
tyranny and violence, an American decision to cut Morsi off can’t come too
soon.
