Frankenstein's brotherhood comes home to roost

Credit: Ali Mansuri 

"Muslim Brotherhood in America" is a short pamphlet by Robert Spencer, summarizing his case against this particular fundamentalist organization, known in Arabic as Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimun. Spencer (perhaps rightly - I haven't double-checked) argues that the Brotherhood controls between 40% and 80% of all mosques in the United States, and that many "moderate" or "legitimate" Muslim organizations are really Brotherhood fronts, most notably the civil right group CAIR. The Muslim Brotherhood is at least indirectly linked to terrorism, since the Palestinian organization (and governing party in Gaza), Hamas, describes itself as a Brotherhood branch. Spencer argues that the rabbit hole goes even deeper, and that ties also exist between Ikhwan front groups and Hizbollah, Islamic Jihad or Al-Qaeda.

What I lack in Spencer's material is context. During the Cold War, conservative Muslim fundamentalism of this kind was a "CIA asset" in Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere, and even a "Mossad asset" on the West Bank. Spencer *does* call for new and unusual alliances against the spread of Muslim fundamentalism, by which he presumably means Russia and its allies, but his pamphlets are published by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Horowitz, of course, was a staunch supporter of the U.S. during the Cold War and hence have no particular right to complain about Muslim extremists eating his candy!

Until recently, Horowitz still called for intervention in Syria, while Spencer (at least tacitly) opposes it. It seems Dave has gotten cold feet lately, realizing that arming "moderate" Islamists in Syria (presumably the very same Muslim Brotherhood) against ISIS might not be such a good idea, but it sure sounds as an "conversion under the hangman's noose". I get the impression that both men, but Horowitz in particular (I'm not sure about Spencer's earlier positions), are desperately fighting a Frankenstein's monster which their own favoured party in Washington (the Reagan-Bush Republicans, who else?) were largely responsible for creating in the first place...

I suppose the change of scenery is that a weakened America (headed by a Democratic president) have become an Ikhwan asset, rather than the Ikhwan being under "our" control. Hence the belated wrath of some people...

Spencer's material could be interesting as a "teaser trailer", but I would advice readers to double-check his claims and, more importantly still, learn more about the context á la Realpolitik that made these extremist brotherhoods and movements strong in the first place...