PLAYING WITH GASOLINE NEAR AN OPEN FLAME: WHITE HOUSE INDICATES WILLINGNESS TO WORK WITH MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD AS LAWLESSNESS, VIOLENCE SPREAD IN EGYPT

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>> Jordan’s Islamists say new PM must step down

The Obama administration is playing with gasoline near an open flame. As lawlessness and violence continues to spread through Cairo and other cities, senior White House and State Department officials are inexplicably indicating that they are now interested in welcoming the Muslim Brotherhood and other “non-secular” groups into whatever new government is created once Hosni Mubarak leaves office, as he has indicated he is now willing to do. Note: As of 2pm eastern Wednesday, 1 Egyptian had died and at least 600 were wounded in violent clashes in Cairo.

• The Los Angeles Times reports, “The Obama administration said for the first time that it supports a role for groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned Islamist organization, in a reformed Egyptian government…..White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that a reformed government ‘has to include a whole host of important nonsecular actors that give Egypt a strong chance to continue to be [a] stable and reliable partner.'”
• The New York Times reports: “White House staff members ‘made clear that they did not rule out engagement with the Muslim Brotherhood as part of an orderly process,’ according to one attendee [to a meeting of Mideast experts with three officials of the National Security Council], who like others interviewed for this article spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to talk publicly about the meeting. The Muslim group had been suppressed by Mr. Mubarak, and Bush administration officials believed it was involved in terrorist activities. It renounced violence years ago. Several times, two other attendees said, White House staff members said that Mr. Obama believed that Egyptian politics needed to encompass ‘nonsecular’ parties: diplomatic-speak for the Muslim Brotherhood.”
• Feb 2 UPDATE — The Washington Post reports: “As it braces for the likelihood of a new ruler in Egypt, the U.S. government is rapidly reassessing its tenuous relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, an opposition movement whose fundamentalist ideology has long been a source of distrust in Washington….The move drew the skepticism of some U.S. officials who have argued that the White House should embrace opposition groups that are more likely to support a democratic government in Egypt, rather than one dedicated to the establishment of religious law. It also marked a change from previous days, when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other officials expressed concern that the uprising in Egypt could shift power to an Islamist government much like the one in Iran, where ayatollah-led factions elbowed aside other groups to seize control of the country in 1979.”

Few moves could be more disastrous. Does the administration not understand who they are dealing with?

• The Muslim Brotherhood’s stated mission is as follows: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”
• According to a blue-ribbon group of national security experts that include former CIA Director James Woolsey, former Delta Force commander Lt-Gen (ret) Jerry Boykin, and former Defense Dept. official Frank Gaffney, a group convened by the Center for Security Policy and called “Team B-II”: “The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928. Its express purpose was two-fold: (1) to implement shariah worldwide, and (2) to re-establish the global Islamic State (caliphate).  Therefore, al Qaeda and the MB have the same objectives.  They differ only in the timing and tactics involved in realizing them.”
• Former Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammad Akef declared in 2004 his “complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America.” In 2001, the Muslim Brotherhood’s publication in London, Risalat al-Ikhwan, featured at the top of its cover page the slogan: “Our Mission: World Domination.” This header was changed after 9/11.

Meanwhile, Mohammed ElBaradei continues to prove he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing by continuing to deny that the Muslim Brotherhood is an extremist Radical group intent on building an Islamic caliphate. Instead, he says they are a peaceful group and should be included in national politics in Egypt just like evangelical Christians are including in the U.s. and Orthodox Jews in Israel. In an interview picked up by Politics Daily, ElBaradei “said the Muslim Brotherhood, which had the largest organized opposition to the government, did not pose the threat of turning Egypt into another Iran. ‘This is totally bogus,’ ElBaradei said. ‘They are no way extremists. They are no way using violence. They are not a majority of the Egyptian people. They will not be more than maybe 20 percent of the Egyptian people. You have to include them like, you know, new evangelicals, you know, groups in the U.S., like the orthodox Jews in Jerusalem.'”

Latest headlines:

• Iran expresses support for protests in Egypt and North Africa
• NY Times: Yemen’s Leader Pledges Not to Seek Re-election
• Amb. Dore Gold: The Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian Crisis
• Jordan: Heightened Instability, But Not Yet a Major Crisis
• Iran changes the balance of power in Lebanon
• A scene of violent chaos in Cairo
• CNN’s Anderson Cooper attacked by mob
• Mubarak’s supporters charge protesters on camels as Egyptian revolution descends into violence
• Violence in Egypt as foes, supporters of Hosni Mubarak clash
• Lawlessness Could Hijack Egypt’s Popular Uprising
• Muslim Brotherhood ‘Against U.S. Interests,’ Says Former State Dept. Official
• WikiLeaks: tension in the Middle East and Asia has ‘direct potential’ to lead to nuclear war
• WikiLeaks: al-Qaeda ‘is planning a dirty bomb’: Al-Qaeda is actively tring to secure nuclear material and recruiting rogue scientists to build a radioactive “dirty” bomb, according to leaked diplomatic documents

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