Robert Dreyfuss | The Nation
The Muslim Brotherhood's Power Play
Is there anything that President Obama can do, or should do, about the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt? The unfortunate answer is no, and no. For years, the Muslim Brotherhood simmered in the background, feeding on and growing strength from Egypt’s unfortunate, long-term process of Islamization. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, a paltry few Egyptians cared at all about political Islam and Islamism, and very few women, if any, covered themselves in public. Long before the fall of President Mubarak, however, Egypt had fallen under the spell of the Muslim Brotherhood’s benighted version of Islam.
It’s that historical legacy that Egypt’s valiant secular, leftist and nationalist movement is battling against.
It will be a long, uphill struggle, and it will have to be accomplished without American help.
The US Military Approves Bombing Children
In October, I blogged about an incident in Afghanistan in which three small children were killed in a US airstrike.
In that one small incident, which drew little attention at the time and since, three children aged 12, 10 and 8 were blown to smithereens in a NATO bombing while they were out gathering dung for fuel.
Now, in a despicable article in Military Times, the US military says that children are legitimate targets in the war in Afghanistan because sometimes the Taliban and other insurgents use kids.
Abbas Exposes Hamas's Nihilism
The interesting paradox involved in the US and Israeli reaction to Mahmoud Abbas’s stunning triumph at the United Nations yesterday is that they simultaneously say that the action was (a) useless and unproductive, and (b) some sort of dangerous violation of the Oslo agreement that threatens Israel. Both notions are absurd.
But Abbas and the Palestinian Authority have taken a major step toward putting the Palestinians on a equal footing with Israel diplomatically and politically.
And they’ve exposed the nihilist, reactionary Hamas and its Muslim Brotherhood allies for what they are: cynical exploiters of Palestinian anger and frustration.
Abbas, the UN and the Futility of Armed 'Resistance'
Let’s be honest: “resistance” to Israel by the Palestinians is idiotic.
By resistance, of course, I mean armed resistance, armed intifadas, shooting aimless missiles into Israeli territory, and outlier actions like the bus bombing that recently occurred in Tel Aviv. A general strike, other nonviolent actions and other sorts of peaceful resistance are fine, and in fact vital.
I get it, that for Palestinians living in near-hopeless conditions, oppressed by an unending Israeli occupation led by a regime in Israel that seems intent on expanding settlements and grabbing all the land it can hold onto, violence might seem like the answer.
The Problem With Hamas
Let’s not absolve Hamas.
Hamas, the reactionary organization that controls Gaza, is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is an organization deeply rooted in right-wing political Islam, and there’s little to admire about the organization. Unlike the PLO and Fatah, which evolved from counterproductive terrorism, such as hijacking planes and ships and blowing up things, Hamas has resisted the inevitable, namely, offering to recognize Israel in exchange for official status as representative of the Palestinians.
That, of course, doesn’t mean that Israel should bomb Gaza, killing scores of civilians. Nor does it mean that a drone-like campaign of assassinations aimed at Hamas’s leaders is a good policy. In fact, since the beginning of the formal conflict between Israel and the Palestinians around 1965, Israel has repeatedly murdered Palestinian leaders, counterproductively. The recent airstrike that killed Hamas’s military leader is the latest in a long line of murders that has served only to radicalize the Palestinian population.
Obama Fiddling While Gaza Burns
In 2008–09, during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead invasion of Gaza that left 1,400 Palestinians dead and no good accomplished, the George W. Bush administration famously dithered and sat on the sidelines, all the while defending Israel’s right to “self-defense.” In 2012, will President Obama do the same?
It’s by no means certain that Israel will invade Gaza again. But so far, I haven’t seen any sign that the White House is calling for restraint on Israel’s part, aside from calls on Israel to avoid civilian casualties.
Here’s what Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, had to say:
Is a Deal with the Taliban on the Horizon?
It’s not only US-Iran talks that might advance now that President Obama has been re-elected but talks with the Taliban too.
Both the United States and the government of Afghanistan have welcomed Pakistan’s release of a passel of Taliban officials. Though details remain sketchy, it appears that Pakistan’s government and the ISI, the army intelligence service, agreed this week to set free a number of Taliban prisoners. According to Dawn, a Pakistani daily, ten members of the Taliban were released, though not Mullah Baradur, the number-two Taliban official and its military commander, who was seized in 2010. If it’s a first step, if more Taliban are released, and if it opens the way toward peace talks involving Pakistan, Afghanistan, the United States and the Taliban, it could be a major development.
The release followed a high-level visit to Pakistan by an Afghan peace council delegation.
Obama on Petraeus, Iran and Syria
On foreign policy and national security, President Obama’s first news conference knocked down conspiracy theories and scandal-mongering over the David Petraeus affair, raised a glimmer of hope on talks with Iran, and—thankfully—refused, so far at least, to join France in recognizing the cobbled-together Syrian opposition bloc as a government-in-exile.
The Petraeus affair—and that, apparently, is all it was, namely, an affair—didn’t compromise national security, it seems, though Obama shifted responsibility for the mess to the FBI, and quite properly. Said Obama, according to a rush transcript compiled by The New York Times:
I have no evidence at this point, from what I’ve seen, that classified information was disclosed that in any way would have had a negative impact on our national security. Obviously, there’s an ongoing investigation. I don’t want to comment on the specifics of the investigation. The FBI has its own protocols in terms of how they proceed. And you know, I’m going to let Director Mueller and others examine those protocols and make some statements to the public generally.
Iran Shoots at US Drone
So what happened in the Persian Gulf?
Let’s take at face value the American report that two Iranian jet fighters attacked a US drone near Iran’s coast, and that the event occurred on November 1.
First, had the event been disclosed at the time, there would have been enormous political pressure on President Obama to fire back. That’s true even though the United States ought not send drones, even unarmed reconnaissance drones, into or near Iran at a moment of great tension. The United States says that the drone was operating in international waters, which may or not be true, since we already know that American drones enter Iran itself, as evidenced by the one malfunctioned and was captured deep inside Iranian territory near Afghanistan. Still, if then world had known of the Iranian foray against the drone last week, either Obama would have been compelled to counterattack—something that he undoubtedly would have avoided doing, given that the result might have been an escalating conflict—or he would have been subject to last-minute accusations that his administration is weak and feckless.
China Matters
The next seven days in China will do a lot to shape the next four years in the United States.
In a context arguably at least as important as the just-concluded elections in the United States, the week-long gathering of the Chinese Communist Party will determine what happens in the largest country on the planet.
Are you paying attention?
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