More on the US pro-Islam, pro-Arab Policy

US policy in the Middle East in the 20th century followed in the footsteps of British Middle Eastern policy, and can be seen as a continuation of it. It was no accident that the British upper crust called the American elite "our American cousins." Indeed, this was often true in a literal sense as many titled Britishers married rich American men and women. Therefore, cousins were found on both sides of the Atlantic.

British policy announced a pro-Islamic turn in 1920 when the Supreme Command of the WW One allies, the Entente powers, ordered the Greek army to stop advancing in Anatolia, and thereby to stop defeating the Turkish army. There is reason to believe that Britain was the leading power pushing for the order to the Greeks to stop. In that same year, British officers in Jerusalem --in what was then officially called Occupied Enemy Territory Administration-South-- encouraged Haj Amin el-Husseini to instigate anti-Jewish riots in order to discourage Great Power approval of the Jewish National Home principle at the San Remo Conference. This British encouragement for Arab violence against Jews in Israel was not at that time the official policy out of London but seems to have been a local initiative of British officers in the country, some or all of whom had been influenced by the notorious Tsarist forgery/plagiarism, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Later, the London policy towards the Jewish National Home followed the local initiative and became hostile to the Jews, encouraging Arab hostility to Jews in the country. In other words, the Arabs became a tool of London for its own anti-Jewish hostility.

Back in Anatolia, in 1922, naval ships of the UK, US and other Western Great Powers watched as Ataturk's new Turkish army drove the Greeks of Anatolia and Smyrna into the sea at the Smyrna port, although Greek boats of all sorts were allowed to pick up refugees. Meanwhile, the powers did not oppose renewed massacres of Armenians in the city [see George Horton, Marjorie Housepian]. The new revolutionary Soviet Union also sided with the Turks in those years, thereby taking the same stance as the Western capitalist powers.

In other parts of the British Empire, the British encouraged Muslims against non-Muslims, and Arabs against non-Arab Muslims. In India, the UK encouraged Muslim demands for a separate state ["pakistan", which had never existed before] against the aspiration of the Indian National Congress for a unified India. In the former Ottoman Empire, the UK saw to it that the vilayet [province] of Mosul, inhabited not by Arabs but by Kurdish Muslims , Assyrian Christians, Jews and smaller ethno-religious groups, be transferred to the new, British-sponsored Kingdom of Iraq and taken away from the new Turkish Republic. Some say that this was because oil had been discovered in and around the city of Mosul, which would be more under British influence as a part of Iraq --then under a British mandate-- than as a part of Turkey. In Iraq, the British winked at the massacre of thousands of Assyrians in 1933 at the hands of the Iraqi Arab army.

During WW2, the UK violated its mandate to foster development of the Jewish National Home by severely limiting the number of Jews to be allowed to immigrate into the Jewish National Home when the Jews most needed a home. This was the notorious 1939 White Paper policy. More generally, UK foreign minister Anthony Eden came out in support of pan-Arab nationalism by calling for formation of what became the Arab League. Eden's speech came on 29 May 1941, just three days before the notorious pro-Nazi pogrom against Jews in Baghdad [1 & 2 June 1941]. Hence, it would have been only natural for Eden to keep British troops outside Baghdad at that time from intervening to stop the massacre of the Jews. Be that as it may, British troops there at that time did not intervene.

When the Jewish underground in Israel was fighting for independence and to have the UK let Jewish Holocaust survivors into the country, the UK continued to refuse to honor its commitments under the mandate. Although Pres. Truman had called for 100,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors to be allowed into Israel by the UK in 1946, by 1947 the US State Dept and other USGovt agencies were encouraging the Arab war effort against the as yet unborn Israel. Here the US slipped into the role of continuing the British anti-Jewish, pro-Arab, pro-Muslim policy.
The UK in Israel supported Arab forces against the Jews, fighting the Jews directly in Yafo [Jaffa] and in Jerusalem.

In 1952, British and US operatives encouraged and helped Nasser and his pro-Hitlerite "Free Officers" to overthrow the parliamentary monarchy of King Farouq. Mubarak belonged to the regime put in place by Nasser and the "Free Officers" in 1952. In that year, American mainstream publications celebrated the fall of King Farouq by explaining that the rebels were against Farouq's "corruption." In Iraq, in the 1960s and 1970s, the USA supported the Arab national socialist Ba`ath Party, the crowning glory of which was Saddam Hussein. After Israeli aircraft had destroyed the Iraqi Osirak atomic development facility [1981], the US administration wanted to denounce Israel for this defensive action, although it did not because public opinion was with Israel. The US also formally "recognized" the PLO in November 1988, although high level contacts with the PLO had gone on for decades.

In early 1979, the Carter Administration --its foreign policy directed by the Sorcerer's Apprentice, Zbigniew Brzezinski-- helped the Islamist fanatic Ayatollah Khomeini, take over Iran. Was Zbig unaware of Khomeini's fanaticism and bigotry? It was no secret to specialists on Iran at that time where Khomeini stood. Likewise, James Clapper, Obama's director of national intelligence [Intelligence?], knows where the Muslim Brotherhood stands and pretended it was something else. Interestingly, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's national insecurity advisor has also been an advisor to Obama. Zbig's grand theory was and --apparently-- still is to build up Islamic fanaticism. No doubt in pursuit of this purpose, Obama sent Zbig to Damascus in February 2008, months before his election. Zbig was probably supposed to tell Junior Assad that if Obama were elected, then the Assads would have a friend in the White House. The fact that Damascus and Assad's very own mouth are world centers of Judeophobic agitprop and hate indoctrination, did not deter either Zbig or Obama.

These facts among others are the background to Obama administration efforts to put the Muslim Brotherhood in power in Egypt. I think that the disciples of Zbig succeeded all too well in Iran. We don't need another Khomeini, this time in Egypt. But stopping Obama's goal from being realized needs constant criticism of Obama for the dangerous course that he is taking.

Sources
Mitchell Bard, The Arab Lobby (New York: Harper Collins 2010) [a lengthy excerpt is found here]
Isaiah Friedman, British Pan-Arab Policy, 1915-1922 (2009) [see synopsis here & here]
Martin Gilbert, Exile and Return (London 1978)
George Horton, The Blight of Asia [Horton was the US consul in Smyrna in 1922]
Marjorie Housepian, The Smyrna Affair
Lord Kinross, Ataturk; A Biography of Mustafa Kemal (1965)

Richard Meinertzhagen, Middle East Diary
Jacques de Morgan, The History of the Armenian People (Boston: Hairenik Press 1918)
Horace Samuel, Revolt by Leave (London)
E K Sarkisian & R G Sahakian, Vital Issues in Modern Armenian History (Watertown, MA: Armenian Studies 1965)
Shlomo Slonim, "The 1948 American Embargo on Arms to Palestine," Political Science Quarterly, (Fall 1979)
Bernard Wasserstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe, 1939-1945.
_ _ _ _ _ _. The British in Palestine: The Mandatory Government and the Arab-Jewish Conflict 1917-1929. (British Historical Society)
Meir Zamir [see several online articles by Zamir on British policy in the 1944 to 1948 period in HaArets & Jerusalem Post]
William Ziff, The Rape of Palestine

- - - - - -
One Jerusalem on the changes in Egypt [includes link to Victor David Hanson].
2-24-2011 At least one mainstream journalist, Arnaud de Borchgrave, talks common sense about the Muslim Brotherhood. If he could only get the ears of Obama, Hilary, James Clapper, and the other fantasy mongers in the Administration [here]
Another MSM journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg, also gives helpful info about the MB's hatred of Jews, specifically Qaradawi's explanation that Muslim hatred of Jews is rooted in Islam and that Muslims must kill all Jews before Judgment Day can come [here]. For those unfamiliar with Islamic lore, this article demonstrates that hatred for Israel is rooted in Islam's hatred for Jews and has nothing especially to do with "settlements" or "occupation."

Why Did James Clapper Falsely Claim that the Muslim Brotherhood Is "largely secular" & Not Extreme?

Just about everybody knows by now that James Clapper, the US director of national intelligence [sic!] made some dumb comments about the Muslim Brotherhood. He said that it was "largely secular". This statement was so blatantly false and indeed ridiculous that both bloggers and American politicians and former American officials ridiculed him for it and/or demanded that he leave his post. What the statement meant, that is, what its purpose was, was to get the American people to accept the Muslim Brotherhood as rulers of Egypt. Here are quotes from Clapper on the Politico site, although it is not the full statement as originally published on Politico but a short version after he had "clarified" his original remarks:

In response to questioning from Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.) about the threat posed by the group, Clapper suggested that the Egyptian part of the Brotherhood is not particularly extreme and that the broader international movement is hard to generalize about.

“The term ‘Muslim Brotherhood’…is an umbrella term for a variety of movements, in the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried Al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam,” Clapper said. “They have pursued social ends, a betterment of the political order in Egypt, et cetera…..In other countries, there are also chapters or franchises of the Muslim Brotherhood, but there is no overarching agenda, particularly in pursuit of violence, at least internationally.”

The Brotherhood uses the slogan, “Islam is the answer,” and generally advocates for government in accordance with Islamic principles. The movement has as a broad goal unifying what it perceives as Muslim lands, from Spain to Indonesia, as a “caliphate.” [on Hot Air][disclaimer on Politico]

Clapper said later in the hearing:

Clapper said later in the hearing that the Brotherhood in Egypt runs 29 hospitals "not under the guise of an extremist agenda." He said the group fills a vacuum caused by the absence of government services, but added, "It is not necessarily with a view to promoting violence or overthrow of the state. [available on Judith Klinghoffer's blog]

Experts like Walid Phares reacted with amazement [here]. Former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton expressed deep disagreement with this claim by Clapper, when interviewed by Fox News.

Let's analyze and try to characterize Clapper's statement. He portrays the MB as not extreme and not religious [obviously a lie], as innocuous and even as humanitarian and working for "social betterment." This silly characterization of MB was supported later in the statement by the claim that it runs 29 hospitals. He says that it not a disciplined, unified organization, implying that it is not a group to worry about. Rather he claims, the MB is: "a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried Al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam." Now, I cannot refute his claim that the MB has "decried al-Qaeda as a perversion of Islam." But supposing that they said it and that they "eschewed violence," is Clapper incapable of understanding that when a group like the MB is in a weak position, it might pretend to be non-violent, innocuous, generously intentioned and so on. That is called taqiyya in Arabic and has been often practiced by religio-political movements [most religious movements in Islam are also political] that need to show obeisance to a strong enemy, at least for the moment.

Of course, the word "eschew" implies that previously they had endorsed violence. In fact, the now fallen Mubarak came out of the same regime that Nasser and Sadat established in 1952, with American and British help at that time. Nasser also had MB support in his takeover in 1952. However, after the takeover was well established, the MB turned against Nasser and tried to assassinate him after which he treated the MB and its leaders very severely. Earlier, in 1948 the MB had sent a delegation of armed men to fight to prevent Israeli independence. Naturally, the British, who controlled the border at that time [before May 15, 1948], allowed the armed Muslim fanatics to cross the border to fight the Jews.

More recently, after the treaty with Israel, Sadat gave more freedom than previously to the MB. The native Egyptian Christians, the Copts, the purest descendants of the ancient Egyptians, suffered from the increased influence of the MB --and Sadat himself was assassinated by an offshoot group of the MB.

Clapper's statement is a lie and Clapper surely knows it. So he is lying to the Congress and the American people. Given many other statements and policies of the Obama administration, as well as overt and covert actions of the Obama govt, such as encouraging the pro-Hamas "Gaza Freedom" convoy that tried to break Israel's legitimate blockade of Hamas-run Gaza, we may conclude that Clapper and Obama & Co. want to promote the Muslim Brotherhood, probably as a coming government of Egypt or to ensure that MB gets a role in a future Egyptian govt. Clapper was using his presumed professional expertise to try to persuade the American people that there is nothing to fear from the MB.

Clapper clarifies [here]
Barry Rubin on Obamamaniac's Egypt policy [here] & on the MB's real aims [here]
Translation of a book by an MB official where he spells what the MB really stands for, as he sees it, not as Clapper or Obama sees it [here] [h/t Judith Klinghoffer]
John Roy Carlson on the MB's war on Israel [with British cooperation] and the MB's plans for Egyptian Jews [here]
Melanie Philips on Obama's zigzags and promotion of the MB [here]
2-15-2011 Bret Stephens of the WSJ on the Muslim Brotherhood's propensity to be all things to all men, that is, to deceive the West into thinking that the MB is somehow nice and innocuous [here]