384 WSJ: ‘To Check Syria, U.S. Explores Bond With Muslim Brothers’

Khaddam and BayanuniThe Wall Street Journal has an article by Jay Solomon today designed to raise alarm that the United States is considering strengthening links with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. Or that’s the headline. In the fine print, it turns out that the Brotherhood is one partner in the National Salvation Front, a ragtag group of exiled dissidents, including former vice-president Abd al-Halim Khaddam and Ali Sadr al-Din al-Bayanuni, exiled head of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

The article also notices U.S. contact with Egyptian, Jordanian, and Iraqi Brothers.

A few errors here:

  1. “The U.S. has traditionally avoided contact with the Brotherhood across the Middle East.” Not so. In 2005, Secretary Rice inadvertently made it policy not to talk to the Brotherhood in an unscripted response to an Egyptian reporter. Previously, the United States regularly met with Brotherhood members of Parliament. Two years later, U.S. congressmen are again talking with Brotherhood MPs.
  2. “Today, the Brotherhood’s relationship to Islamist militancy, and al Qaeda in particular, is the source of much debate.” OK, true, but only on such reputable Web sites as Frontpagemag.com and on Israel-first blogs. The Brotherhood likes to portray itself as a bulwark against Al-Qaeda. For young Muslims with a generally jihadi outlook, it’s a nonviolent alternative. Either they accept the Brotherhood’s gradualist approach and start talking about reform, or, in rare cases, they leave the Brotherhood in frustration for one of the violent groups.

Syrian readers, or the khawagas who study Syria, might be able to identify further errors. If I were in the business of advising the U.S. government (and thank God I’m not), I’d counsel the USG to be wary of contacts with the Syrian Brothers.

  1. They were destroyed after they waged war against Hafez, and so are of limited utility to anyone who’d like to topple the Syrian government.
  2. They used violence a lot more recently than their Egyptian or Jordanian counterparts. Egyptian Brothers will today tell you that they believe their Syrian counterparts were in error when they took up arms (though it’s unclear whether they believe it was a tactical or an ideological error—certainly the outcome of their actions has shown them to have been a tactical error).
  3. Contact with the United States discredits opposition movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood. As Jay Solomon notes, today it is the Brothers who are most wary of contacts with the United States. Here in Cairo, the government press tarred them for meeting with U.S. congressmen. Akef felt obliged to issue a string of proforma anti-U.S. rants to prove the group’s bona fides. The group’s constituency is staunchly anti-U.S. because of U.S. support for nasty (Israeli and Arab) regimes in the Middle East and the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

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