Learning to Love Big Brotherhood

February 28, 2012 By 26 Comments

The Arab Spring, like the banking system and the national debt, has become too big to fail. The “too big to fail” label mandates the cover-up of a bad policy that has too many influential people, movements and countries tied into it to allow anyone to admit that the whole thing has gone pear-shaped.

The only way to deny the failure of the Arab Spring as a means for creating a better and freer region is by embracing its disastrous consequences. In other words, goodbye, Egyptian Twitter activists; hello, Muslim Brotherhood.

The triumph of Islamic parties in Egypt and Tunisia leaves Western “Springers” with only two choices: to either admit that the whole thing is a disaster and that the brakes need to be applied or learn to love the Brotherhood. Senator McCain’s delegation to Egypt, which included Senator Lindsay Graham, praised the Brotherhood for its opposition to the laws that the International Republican Institute activists ran afoul of in aiding the overthrow of Mubarak.

It’s not quite an endorsement of the Brotherhood, it’s something worse—it’s an endorsement of the process that brought the Brotherhood to power. The Muslim Brotherhood is not a supporter of foreign funded regime change, unless it’s a foreign funded regime change that brings them to power. When the Brotherhood is wielding absolute power, then IRI activists won’t merely be prevented from leaving the country, they’ll be put on trial and face the death penalty, like Amir Mirzaei Hekmati in Iran or they’ll be attacked in public like Abdel-Moneim Aboul-Fotouh, a splinter Brotherhood candidate.

Reasonable people who find themselves on the same side as a genocidal organization like the Muslim Brotherhood would check twice to see if they really are doing the right thing. McCain, however, keeps pushing the regime change button, this time in Syria where the militias are already brandishing Al-Qaeda flags. McCain rightly points out that losing Syria would weaken Iran, but gaining Syria would strengthen the Brotherhood.

The “Springers” are unwilling to admit the possibility even while the Al-Nahda party is crushing unions in Tunisia, and Egyptian Islamists are burning Coptic Christians out of their homes. The Libyan capital is in the grip of the militias, and the anti-torture McCain, who endorsed intervention in Libya, can stop by to witness the militias he supported torturing former members of the regime and anyone with black skin.

There has yet to be a single positive outcome in any of the Arab Spring countries where the government was overthrown. Egypt is now mortgaged to the Brotherhood, Tunisia, to its Al-Nahda cousins and Libya may fall to a former Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist-group-turned Brotherhood proxy. Yemen is starting to look a whole lot like Afghanistan. Contrary to “Springer” dogma, the healthiest countries in the region are those which managed to outlast the seasonal pressures of the Arab Spring.

If the Arab Spring were an experiment, it has indisputably failed. The Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov said of Communism that if it were an experiment, he would regret subjecting even a frog to it. The Arab Spring has already subjected approximately 100 million people to this particular experiment, not counting the collateral damage in nearby countries like Israel, which will have to live next door to a Sunni Iran. But the experimenters seem determined to keep cutting open frogs until they successfully graft an Islamic green-banded poison toad onto a democratic fire-bellied bullfrog.

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About

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.

  • UCSPanther

    I do have to admit, it was funny watching all the Jew haters and other anti-western malcontents run around in confusion when Gaddafi came under attack (There are a few still mourning that lunatic), and then all but go silent when the Syrian rebellion began.

    • Cuban Refugee

      Just as there were crickets chirping in the Oval Office, and its many organs in the media, when Iranians took to the streets in protest …

  • spinoneone

    Admit they made a mistake? Not gonna happen! They are omniscient, or at least they want us to think so. The left also believes that they are intellectually superior to all other possible options. So, admitting a mistake – not ever!

  • StephenD

    "Any group that comes to power as a result of the Arab Spring must be considered democratic and moderate, for if it isn’t, suddenly the Arab Spring is no longer democratic or moderate."

    Yeah, their "Democracy" is evident by all the women suddenly wearing Hijabs; by the freedom of the press; by the personal liberty and individual responsibility practiced under a Constitutional set of laws with equality of all. Oh wait, each and every one that even vies for power emphatically states they do not want a Constitution but rather they pledge SHARIA LAW will be the basis of their governance.
    Where do we sign up to object to our tax dollars going to their support?

  • ObamaYoMoma

    The Arab Spring, like the banking system and the national debt, has become too big to fail. The “too big to fail” label mandates the cover-up of a bad policy that has too many influential people, movements and countries tied into it to allow anyone to admit that the whole thing has gone pear-shaped.

    How about Bush's two fantasy based nation-building missions in Iraq and Afghanistan premised on false PC multicultural myths and misconceptions about Islam that are about as counterproductive and insane as lifting up Hitler and the Nazis after WWII and that inevitably turned into the two biggest strategic blunders ever in American history? They are also “too big to fail.” Nevertheless, their inevitable failures are nonetheless being covered up.

    Senator McCain’s delegation to Egypt, which included Senator Lindsay Graham, praised the Brotherhood for its opposition to the laws that the International Republican Institute activists ran afoul of in aiding the overthrow of Mubarak.

    The problem is that under Bush the Republican Party morphed into the second-coming of the Dhimmicrat Party and thus the result today is both parties that control America are completely incompetent when it comes to protecting and defending America from jihad and the scourge of Islam.

    As the Arab Spring is too big to fail, the Al-Nahda ghouls are invariably described as “moderate Islamists” in the press. If genocide makes you a moderate Islamist, it’s an open question of what you have to believe to be an “extremist Islamist.”

    Actually, the existence of Islamists, moderate Islamists, and extremist Islamists, or for that matter radical Muslims, moderate radical Muslims, or extremist radical Muslims, since Islamists = radical Muslims, are all false PC multicultural myths. There is only mainstream orthodox Muslims and if anyone claims otherwise, then they should be dismissed as the buffoon they are.

    In the Arab Spring, extremism can never prosper, for if it prospers, none dare call it extremism.

    What is prospering in the Arab Spring is not extremism at all. Instead, it is mainstream orthodox Islam, and if anyone doubts me, then please let them go look up and read the last PEW poll of Egyptians taken before Mubarak was overthrown. Not to mention that the existence of extremist Islam, radical Islam, peaceful Islam, moderate Islam, or whatever are all false PC multicultural myths. The truth is there is only mainstream orthodox Islam, as the divine texts and tenets of Islam are immutable.

    Indeed, the Iraq and Afghanistan fantasy based nation-building missions inevitably turned into the two biggest strategic blunders ever in American history, the Arab Spring has now inevitably blown up in our faces, and for some reason this writer is trying to camouflage the reality of it all by blaming it on extremism instead of blaming the real culprit, which is mainstream orthodox Islam. Amazing.

    The Brotherhood and Al-Nahda are all “moderates” now.

    Now you know how I feel when you repeatedly mislabel mainstream orthodox Muslims as being Islamists, which implies radical Muslims, and which, of course, don't follow mainstream orthodox Islam but instead radical Islam, and never mind the fact that the existence of Islamists, radical Muslims, and radical Islam are all false PC multicultural myths.

    Any group that comes to power as a result of the Arab Spring must be considered democratic and moderate, for if it isn’t, suddenly the Arab Spring is no longer democratic or moderate.

    The predictable result of the absurd PC multicultural kubuki dance you all play.

    The new narrative of the Arab Spring is that it will usher in an era of Islamic democracy.

    Yeah right! Democracy, at least the variety of democracy where freedom, liberty, and human rights are intrinsic, is absolutely impossible in the Islamic world because they are abominations according to mainstream orthodox Islam as opposed to non-existent radical Islam. Thus, since in essence Islam is a supremacist theo-political totalitarian ideology that masquerades as being a religion, any so-called Islamic democracy will inevitably end up being 100 percent totalitarian, exactly like it is in Iraq and exactly like it is in Afghanistan, thanks to Sharia. In other words, they will end up being draconian Islamic totalitarian hellholes.

    • Pete

      Right on ObamaYoMama!

    • Tychicus

      Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is Turkey’s Prime Minister since 2003 and also the chairman of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which holds a majority of the seats in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. In the recent 2011 general election, the AKP was re-elected for a third term and Erdoğan remains Prime Minister of a single party government.

      Speaking at Kanal D TV’s Arena program, PM Erdoğan commented on the term “moderate Islam”, often used in the West to describe AKP and said,

      ‘These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.”
      Source: Milliyet, Turkey, August 21, 2007

    • john gerard

      There is indeed no such thing as Islamic extremism. Those labeled ‘extremists’ are doing nothing extreme, but going about perfectly normal Islamic business. The so-called moderates are the marginalsed Muslims, as all the doctrinal back-up is given to the jihadists.

    • Tychicus

      There are only Devout Muslims and Americans Muslims.
      Devout Muslims live as Muhammad lived. Muhammad was the perfect man who lived according to the laws of Islam.
      ======================
      And so it is that Bill Clinton, laden with honors, lauded, respected and adulated everywhere he goes, in with the most powerful and influential clubs and clans of all, almost certainly didn’t think that he was saying anything remotely controversial when he said that “inequality” was “fueling” the Nigerian jihad. He probably has no idea that the Nigerian jihadist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was sentenced to life in prison Thursday for trying to light a bomb hidden in his underwear and blow up a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, was one of the nation’s wealthiest young men. Abdulmutallab’s father is Dr. Alhaji Umaru Abdul Mutallab, former head of Nigeria’s largest bank, the First Bank of Nigeria PLC, as well as a former government minister.
      Some reports say that Dr. Alhaji Umaru Abdul Mutallab actually warned Western officials about his son, and abhors what he did – despite the fact that he has been one of the most energetic promoters of Sharia in Nigeria, and has reported ties to Wahhabi jihadists in Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Dubai, Yemen, and Egypt. But whether or not he approves of what his son did, the fact is that he raised him in a well-to-do environment. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab did not know the gnaw of hunger and poverty or harbor resentment for the wealthy and comfortable around him. He did not turn to jihad out of a hopeless desperation of finding any other recourse, and a determination to redress social inequalities. No, like other fantastically rich men such as Osama bin Laden and Aymen al-Zawahiri, as well as the jihadist physicians in Glasgow, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab turned to jihad because he believed that it was his responsibility before Allah to wage war against Infidels, and that Allah would reward his killing large numbers of them. When he pled guilty in October, Abdulmutallab said to the court: “In late 2009, in fulfillment of a religious obligation, I decided to participate in jihad against the United States. The Koran obliges every able Muslim to participate in jihad and fight in the way of Allah, those who fight you, and kill them wherever you find them, some parts of the Koran say, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” http://frontpagemag.com/2012/02/17/poverty-still-…

    • Tychicus

      THIS IS ISLAM, THE SO CALLED "RELIGION OF PEACE" :
      "Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them.” Koran 2:191
      “Make war on the infidels living in your neighborhood.” Koran 9:123
      “When opportunity arises, kill the infidels wherever you catch them.” Koran 9:5
      “Any religion other than Islam is not acceptable.” Koran 3:85
      “The Jews and the Christians are perverts; fight them.”… Koran 9:30
      “Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticize Islam” Koran 5:33
      “Punish the unbelievers with garments of fire, hooked iron rods, boiling water; melt their skin and bellies.” Koran 22:19
      “The unbelievers are stupid; urge the Muslims to fight them.” Koran 8:65
      “Muslims must not take the infidels as friends.” Koran 3:28
      “Terrorize and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Qur’an.” Koran 8:12
      “Muslims must muster all weapons to terrorize the infidels.” Koran 8:60

    • Tychicus

      Study Shows U.S. Mosques Repositories of Sharia, Jihad, and Muslim Brotherhood Literature and Preachers
      In 1998, Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, a Sufi leader, visited 114 mosques in the United States. Then he gave testimony before a State Department Open Forum in January 1999, and asserted that 80% of American mosques taught the "extremist ideology."
      Then there was the Center for Religious Freedom's 2005 study, and the Mapping Sharia Project's 2008 study. Each independently showed that upwards of 80% of mosques in America were preaching hatred of Jews and Christians and the necessity ultimately to impose Islamic rule.
      And in the summer of 2011 came another study showing that only 19% of mosques in U.S. don't teach jihad violence and/or Islamic supremacism.
      http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/12/study-shows-us-…

    • Tychicus

      Statics of Muslims in America.
      Not a pretty picture.
      Where are the Moderate Muslims? http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/a_response…

      I think it can be accurately said that people think that a moderate Muslim are those who are not planning a violent terrorist attack. However, that is hardly an accurate view. Just check out the stats.

  • Jim_C

    "Arab Spring" is like "War on Terror": a nice concept that means whatever you want it to mean at any given time.

    To the extent that the Arab Spring is ushering in democracy as a political system–yeah, not too good.

    To the extent however that technology allows people in that part of the world to see a much bigger world than the one they know, it's pretty powerful. And whether we are watching Iraqis vote, or whether we are watching a kid in Damascus with a smart phone capturing a protest that never "officially" happened, it's a pretty moving spectacle.

    But I think we've learned out lesson with experiments in nation building. It's a trap and it makes us easy scapegoats.

    We have to face facts that they need to figure out what they're missing, and they need to find the right people to blame for that. As long as we're butting into the picture, it's all too easy for their propaganda machines to deflect blame and point toward us.

  • mrbean

    The nation-building idea has a critical, generally overlooked, gap: who knows how to do it? Pundits and presidents talk about nation building as if it were a settled technology, like building bridges or removing gall bladders. Huge amounts of government and foundation money have been poured into the topic of democracy building, and academics and bureaucrats have produced reams of verbose commentary. But still there is no concrete, useable body of knowledge.
    To attenpt nation building directly or indirectly with Muslims is naive and will never be succeful.

    • truebearing

      The only times nation building has worked is when we utterly destroyed the enemy nation first. You can't defeat a nation by merely defeating its current army. That is the false premise we have been operating under since Korea.

  • Pete

    Remember Bush's speech where he bemoaned the West for 60 years of supporting the wrong people in the West? Remember his Messianic 2004 inauguration speech? He said democracy would free every nation on Earth. Bush is the intellectual father of the Arab Spring. He wanted Iraq to be a shining example for the Muslims. Biggest mistake in American history.

  • Nakba1948

    You Ziocons once again miss the point. No one here in America should be cheering if Islamist parties take control of Egypt of Libya. But if that comes to pass, it will be because the people of those countries voted for them in democratic elections, just as the Turkish people voted in the Justice and Development Party to power. This stands is sharp contrast to the likes of Mubarak, Qaddafi and al-Assad, all of whom ruled (and in Assad's case, continue to rule), without the consent of their peoples. What gives you neocon-Zionists the right to dictate to the peoples of the Middle East who they can and can't vote into power? Maybe you're considering Israel's best interests (and what a shock that would be); but America's best interests are served by letting others exercise the same democratic rights Americans hold so dear.

    • Ghostwriter

      Did you even stop to consider that Egypt and Tunisia might turn into states that are run like Iran? You'd probably like that. Things are already bad for Christians in those countries. Things will get worse for them,but you don't care,Nakba1948. You just want to bash Jews and Israel,don't you?

    • UCSPanther

      I wonder what you are going to say when the Muslim Brotherhood declares that all subsequent elections are off and announces that they will celebrate-by purging the enemies of the state.

      • Nakba1948

        I'll believe it when I see it.

        • pagegl

          You probably won't have long to wait.

        • KarshiKhanabad

          Hey, Mr. "Ultimate Catastrophe to Muslims which happened in 1948"!

          (Referring to the founding of the State of Israel, by the way)

          Your username screams to the rest of us at FPM that you have a gigantic Islamic chip on your shoulder. So why should we Kuffar expect reasonable logical debate from the likes of you?

    • john gerard

      Why would Muslims in the ME/NA vote for something other than Muslims culturally and politically entrenched in their ways and the ways of their region? It wouldn’t make any sense for them to vote for western style politicians and ideas. Why on earth would they? The election result should be a surprise to no-one. It’s exactly what I expected. I think it’s a good thing that muslims get what they vote for – the bitter pill of Islam. Once they live it, like the Iranians have, they’ll want out at some point. Until then, though, we have to deal with it.

    • Pete

      Nakba1948 what makes you think Muslims will respect and/or tolerate Christian minorities?

    • aspacia

      The people will have one vote, one time. That is the problem. Why hasn't Hamas held another election? Many Gazans are not happy with them.

      A catastrophe is when rulers start gassing people in the thousand or just throwing them alive into ovens, or having those deemed enemies dig a ditch, strip them naked then execute them. You have no idea how lucky you are that the Jews have a higher moral code than your brethren. They take care of their brethren.

      Why not immigrate to the land of your peace loving brethren? Be honest now. You status is the result of Muslim misdeeds, not Israeli and your can't bring yourself to admit it. Your brethren scapegoat Israel for your plight, and they are using you as cannon

  • truebearing

    "The Arab Spring"……now that is black humor…seems to have morphed rather quickly, and predictably, into the Arab Silent Spring. In every one of these countries the brief period of freedom has been rapidly followed by the heavy hand of radical Islam, and the evanescent joy of democratic freedom quickly smothered by theocratic tyranny. The world will rue the day when Obama came to power, and used that power to facilitate a Caliphate.

    How naive is the Left? Did they really think they would get the upper hand in Egypt? Do they think the Islamists will share power?

    Of all of those on the Left, Obama is the one most happy with the rise of radical Islam, even when it wins out over the Marxists. His deepest roots are in Islam and at the appropriate juncture, he will sell out the Left for Islam.. Some are confused by Obama because they assume no one with a shred of intelligence would repeatedly choose a path for this country that is a proven failure, but that assumes he wants this nation to prosper and thrive. He clearly doesn't. His loyalty is to a waxing crescent moon.