"It’s Official: Obama Administration Promotes Islamist Regimes; Insists They are Moderate"

Karam



By Barry Rubin (Nov 8, 2011)

"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s speech justifying Obama Administration Middle East policy changes everything. True, it isn’t surprising. I’ve been writing for almost three years about how the current U.S. government thinks this way.

Do not underestimate this speech’s importance. It isn’t a reluctant acceptance that Islamists might win elections and take over coutries. It is an enthusiastic endorsement of that idea.

But now there can be no doubt that Obama’s Middle East policy is engaged in what might be the biggest blunder in the history of U.S. foreign policy. Millions of people will bemoan it as delivering their countries into the grip of repressive dictatorships.

The speech can be summarized as follows:

Islamist regimes—at least those whose “behavior” is proper–are good. If Islamists exercise political power they will be moderate. Thus, the United States will not merely tolerate but will actually support Islamists taking power.

The Obama Administration is now on the side of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizballah, and the Taliban (“moderate” wing). It is the equivalent of an American government telling you that Communism and fascism are no threat because they can be tamed by participating in elections and being in power.

Thus, the Obama Administration has openly sided with Israel’s enemies. I don’t mean the Palestinian Authority (PA) or Saudi Arabia. That would be tolerable. We’re talking here about openly genocidal, antisemitic groups."

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The Hillary Clinton speech that Professor Rubin refers to is one that she gave last fall wherein she said the following:

“Not all Islamists are alike. Turkey and Iran are both governed by parties with religious roots, but their models and behavior are radically different. There are plenty of political parties with religious affiliations—Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Muslim—that respect the rules of democratic politics. The suggestion that faithful Muslims cannot thrive in a democracy is insulting, dangerous, and wrong. They do it in this country every day.”

The Obama administration, according to Professor Rubin, is now on the side of the Muslim Brotherhood and, essentially, the Radical Jihad more generally.

One must wonder why this would be? Does the Obama administration want to promote the Islamist tendency in the Arab world? I doubt it. It's not that Obama wants to see the rise of al-Sharia, Muslim religious law, it's that as a progressive he doesn't see it as a problem, period. In a certain way his attitude is reflective of the progressive movement, more generally.

Because the Muslims of the Middle East are an oppressed people, or so the narrative goes, we, as kind-hearted, well-meaning, progressive westerners, must condescend to their desires even if those desires include the oppression of women, Jews, and Gays. Multiculturalism is more important than universal human rights and therefore if Egypt and Turkey and Tunisia and Morocco and Libya go the genocidal Radical Jihadi route... well?... who are we to say "no"?

And it is in this way that the Obama administration, wanting nothing but the best for everyone, sells the Jewish state directly down the river.

In any event, we are in fact seeing the rise of Radical Islam in the Muslim world and this is going to be viewed by historians as a very important part of the Obama administration's legacy. The Obama administration will go down in history as the American government under which Iran developed nuclear weaponry and in which political Islam finally came into its own as a world power.

Any political movement that succeeds in taking over the governments of so many countries must be seen as a world power and it is under the Obama administration that after so many decades Radical Islam (or political Islamism, or whatever terminology one might want to use) has come to the fore in the Arab world.

Sayyid Qutb, one of the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood and the author of such estimable works as, "Our Struggle Against the Jews" must be very, very happy in whatever warm climate he may currently reside within.

What we need to do, however, as people who care about the Jewish state and the Jewish people is hold this administration responsible for its behavior. It's not merely that the Obama administration is allowing the rise of the Jihad, but it is positively encouraging it.

As Jewish people we need to know when to stand up and make our voices heard. We need to be able to stand up and say "NO" to an administration that would so easily point a gun at our heads. Is that line hyperbolic? Sure. Is it false? Not really. The developments that we are now seeing in the Arab world represent an obvious threat to the Jewish people because we are so outnumbered and because the Jihad, which this administration has bolstered, is genocidal in nature.

This is a big, big problem, but do not expect western progressives, Zionist or otherwise, to yank their heads out of the sand long enough to object.

They won't and I say this as someone who came out of that movement.

There is tremendous social pressure within progressive and liberal circles to remain silent on this question. Anyone who so much as refers to this development is lambasted as a fascist or a racist. They will throw everything that they have at you for even discussing this material.

It's a terrible shame, really, particularly given how many progressives are Jewish, but the only thing that we can do is face reality as it is and as it is right now the Arab world is seething with a genocidal intention that outweighs anything that we've seen previously. We do not need to go running around like chickens with our heads cut off, but we absolutely must acknowledge the obvious.

And even that seems too much to ask sometimes.

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