Washington’s About-Face on the Muslim Brotherhood

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Jerusalem Monday meeting with Israeli officials about the power struggle in Egypt, the civil war in Syria, the Iranian nuclear threat and the diplomatic process with the Palestinians. She’s got a full plate—and so does Israel, as you can see from that agenda.

Israeli officials said her meetings in Egypt over the weekend will be high on the agenda of Clinton’s talks here in Jerusalem. On Saturday, Clinton met with the new Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi in Cairo. Despite Morsi’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, Clinton told the new president that the U.S. government would support him and “the full transition to civilian rule, with all that it entails.”

Though the media highlighted Clinton’s muted reaction to the new president’s ongoing power struggle with Egypt’s military generals, she did imply that the military should cease overstepping its bounds. She said she would work “to support the military’s return to a purely national security role.”

The New York Times reported, “In brief remarks after the meeting with Mr. Morsi, her sole reference to the military decrees dissolving the Islamist-led parliament and eviscerating his powers was a call for ‘consensus’ among all sides in order ‘to work on a new constitution and parliament, to protect civil society, to draft a new constitution that will be respected by all, and to assert the full authority of the presidency.’”

On Sunday, Clinton then met with Field Marshall Mohamed Tantawi, the Egyptian general who is at odds with President Morsi. After his meeting with Clinton, Tantawi vowed that the military would not let “one group” take over Egypt. “Egypt will not fall. It is for all Egyptians and not just one group …. The armed forces will not allow it,” he said.

During her meetings in Egypt, Secretary Clinton also said she is working on delivering the billion-dollar aid package the Obama administration previously promised to Egypt, despite Congress’s requirements that continued aid to the country be contingent upon proof of its commitment to democracy. In the lead-up to the presidential elections, Egypt’s military council ignored multiple threats by the U.S. that it would withdraw its annual financial aid as the military implemented controversial decisions to prevent the Muslim Brotherhood from gaining too much power. Weeks later, the Muslim Brotherhood is now in the driver’s seat and gaining speed, while the flow of finances from Washington has continued.

The military council’s willingness to risk the much-needed financial support should be taken as a direct sign of just how serious a threat it considers the Muslim Brotherhood to be. It also serves as yet another sign of America’s weakening influence throughout the region.

As the New York Times noted, “The generals, who seized power last year after the ouster of the strongman Hosni Mubarak, have repeatedly rebuffed American pressure. The new president, Mr. Morsi, and the other leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood still harbor deep doubts about Washington’s agenda and have repeatedly surprised American officials in Washington with the accelerating pace of their moves to take power.”

The Times said, “Despite open channels of communication, Brotherhood leaders have repeatedly surprised Washington with their brisk moves to challenge the generals: running for and winning more parliamentary seats than they said they would, breaking a pledge not to run a presidential candidate, and then last week using a presidential decree to call back the parliament in defiance of the generals’ order dissolving it.”

So far, Clinton is the highest-ranking U.S. official to meet with Cairo’s new government, though Morsi has already been invited to meet with President Barack Obama at the White House in September.

Washington’s newfound friendship with the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government in Cairo is an astonishing about-face from its previous stance regarding the organization.

Just seven years ago, then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice emphatically stated, “We have not engaged the Muslim Brotherhood—and we won’t.”

But as soon as President Obama set foot in the White House, Washington began in earnest to aggressively court the Muslim Brotherhood’s support. And along the way, it ousted the pro-American regime of Hosni Mubarak, welcomed a radical Islamist government into the neighborhood of nations and called on the Egyptian military to give Mohammed Morsi free reign.