No more military-backed dictatorship and no contemplation of an Islamist dictatorship. The revolution that resulted in Mubarak’s downfall (plus the years of opposition political activity and dissent before that) clearly revealed that Egypt contains large groups of people who want representation in their government. The body politic is composed of Muslims, Christians, and liberals/ secularists. The test of any new government — including the putting together of one — would be whether it would respect the rights of all nonviolent actors to participate in a representative government. This was especially crucial to understand and respect given that we had just witnessed millions of Egyptians from these various camps mobilized with considerable bravery and determination to liberate themselves.
Not long after barely winning power, the Muslim Brotherhood demonstrated that it had no intention of recognizing these facts or governing accordingly. President Mohamed Morsy took steps and made statements indicative of his goal: an “Islamist project” as his spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan so ably put it Tuesday.
Ghozlan’s statements in Arabic on the Brotherhood’s website were translated by the Washington Free Beacon and published Wednesday. They include these comments: “America was not happy about the establishment of a regime that adopts the Islamic civilization project for the state at the expense of the secular Western model.” And this telling remark about the Brotherhood’s purported support for democracy: “What [America] found from the new regime, headed by Dr. Mohamed Morsi, was opposition to” its pro-Israel, pro-democracy agenda.
And finally this one: Morsy “sought to substitute the Islamic project for the Western secular project, and here began the exploitation by the secular parties in order to spoil [the Islamic project].”
The Obama administration’s policy from the outset was to pretend the Brotherhood and Morsy had good intentions and an interest in doing the right thing now that Egypt was finally free. They met pretty much exclusively with the government and eschewed meeting with the opposition. They spent some months pointing up Morsy’s nuanced “cooperation” regarding the peace treaty with Israel and the peace process between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. Now then, Morsy could hardly do otherwise, so that doesn’t count for much in telling us what the United States was dealing with. But we knew what the United States was dealing with because we had plenty of evidence from the last 50 years of what the Brotherhood is and does and wants.
Indeed, none of this surprises critics of the Obama policy. Ghozlan’s comments only confirm what was known all along. The question is, when will the administration quit being surprised by inveterate enemies and haters of the United States and democracy? Four years of policy based on wishing and hoping, on the fading charisma of an American politician, and on the certainty that everyone really does want to get along and will do so if properly engaged in an era of good feelings has failed utterly. National security is at risk when leaders impose their “ought” for what “is.”
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Foreign Policy