Alarmed By Hillary and Obama

By Nonie Darwish

Since I am originally from Egypt and monitor daily Arab media I am witnessing an unprecedented alarm from Egyptian reformists who represent the almost half of the Egyptians who reject the Muslim Brotherhood as a moderate political group.

There is a counter Anti-Islamist and an anti-Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt that Secretary Hillary Clinton, President Obama and the US media are not fully aware of. The US government by supporting the Muslim Brotherhood has alienated Egyptians who are the natural allies of the US. Non-Islamist Egyptians today believe that the Obama administration and Secretary of State are behind the success of the new Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi in reaching power. Rightly or wrongly, many reformist Egyptians believe that Hillary and the Obama administration have been supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and have empowered them since taking office 3 years ago, when Obama gave his famous speech in Cairo.

The Arabic internet is full of incredible accusations of Hillary and American conspiracies to support the Muslim Brotherhood, which of course mention her trusted Muslim aide, Huma Abedin.  Also there are many rumors on Obama's having Islamists all over the White House, especially his head-covered Islamic affairs aide, Dalia Mugahid. The reason that I mentioned that she is head-covered is because we Egyptians know that when a woman covers herself the Islamic way it means one thing, "I am for Sharia." No ifs ands or buts. Incidentally Mugahid was nominated as the most powerful Arab woman for one reason and one reason only; her being a trusted aide of Obama in the White House.

The rumors are also all over the internet regarding Islamists in every part of the US government and some Muslims and homeland security. Such rumors are not mentioned as a negative by Arabs who talk about it, but as a wonderful accomplishment after 9/11. It is a proof to many Muslims that terror can work like magic on Americans.

Below is a letter addressed to Secretary Hillary by a well known and highly respected Egyptian reformist by the name of Tarek Heggy (presented verbatim):

This message shall be (today) hand-delivered to the USA Secretary of State H. Clinton. Secretary H. Clinton ..

I know, every scholar in the world knows and you (yourself) know that you know very little about Islam, the history of Muslim people, Islamic Jurisprudence, Political Islam, the literature and march of the Muslim Brotherhood since 1928, Wahhabism and the (impossible to be changed) agenda of Egypt's MBs. I also know that your boss (like yourself) does not know much about all the domains that I just referred to. Obviously, neither you nor your country shall bear the detrimental consequences of the policy that have been drawn by those who know very little about these Islam related subjects.

We (the non-Islamist sons and daughters of Egypt and the 15 million Copts) who will pay a tragic price. The USA failure in Afghanistan and Iraq say a lot about the consequences of policies decided by those who either do not know or they know very little about the characteristics of complexest cultures. I have been more than 40 times to the USA. In these visits I spoke at most of the top think-tanks (The American Enterprise Institute, The Heritage Foundation, The WINEP, the Rand Organization ... etc.) and lectured at many of the USA top universities (Princeton, Columbia, California Berkeley ... etc.). Even in such reputable organizations I never met with people who understand sufficiently the domains mentioned hereinabove. The exceptions (such as Professor Bernard Lewis and others) were rather tangibly rare and do not negate the phenomenon that Islamism is far from being understood in your (very young) country.

In Egypt, you will here a lot of hypocrisy about how moderate the MBs have become! Which is 100% incorrect. Not only that, but a lie that will cost the non-Islamist Egyptians, the Middle East region, the entire world and the USA a gigantic catastrophe. It takes decades of a hard work and profound research to come to the conclusion that while there are many moderate Muslims, there is no single moderate Islamist on the face of earth. I know (having been the CEO of the world top Oil company at the age of 36) that senior positions affect the human mind and make it (in general) inclined to reject strong advice as this one, but I insist to render such an advice.

I also insist on saying that before the world lives with another Osama bin Laden and another Qa'eda nightmare, I strongly recommend that you arrange to get some intensive education on the true agenda of the MBs. Please do not be offended of this piece of advice. You know that you know very little about Islamism. A briefing by the American (usually "shallow") advisers (aide-memoires in a few pages) shall never help in this regard. You need to listen (for hours) to a world-class scholar of the caliber of Bernard Lewis. Did I upset you? probably "YES". But this was not the objective of this message.

The aim was to try to stop the occurrence of another grave mistake such as the one committed in 1979 when the CIA & The Saudi Intelligence (headed at the time by an idiot and radical Islamist named Turky al Faisal) agreed to create the Mujahedene Movements (and troops) to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. While every true scholar was aware that the USSR was about to (naturally) collapse. In 1978, I wrote and published a book that explained how the USSR would collapse in about a decade by the effect of its inner economic decay).

Finally, let me assure you that all the Islamists that you shall meet with today in Cairo are nothing but disguised terrorists ... they are (undoubtedly) anti-modernity, anti-tolerance, anti-women-rights, anti-plurality, anti-otherness, anti-freedom of speech and anti-critical mind .... they are atavistic, destructive and backward criminals more than anything that you could imagine. With my best regards,

Tarek Heggy.

Cairo : 14th July, 2012.

The above views of Mr. Heggy are shared by many Egyptians whose hopes for freedom were crushed by the Islamists who are now treated as serious partners by the US government. Obama's support and welcome of the Muslim Brotherhood to power as a moderate group goes against what the majority of many Egyptians believe. America does not have to take a sides in complex internal Arabs conflicts. When we take sides, we end up blamed and taking sides in Libya, Egypt, Syria etc. will eventually come back to bite us. It is better and wiser for America to standby and let the Arab League handle internal matters and civil wars. The choice for America's national interests are not supporting the Muslim Brotherhood either. So why are we taking sides?