Designating the Muslim Brotherhood

“Final documents are being drawn,” President Trump said over the weekend, speaking of the long-overdue designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization. Will the president next start cooling off relations with Muslim countries he now considers America’s brothers in arms, though? Can the Brotherhood be designated as a terrorist group while America extols its sponsors, Turkey and Qatar, as forces for good?The pan-Islamic movement was born in Egypt nearly a century ago as a pushback against British colonialism. An Islamic preacher, Hassan al-Banna, dreamed of a caliphate that would unite the world’s Sunnis, while in Egypt he promoted charity and literacy. Al- Banna’s teachings, and promotion of terrorism by the Brotherhood’s chief ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, have inspired Al Qaeda and ISIS. Hamas is a Brotherhood branch.“The Trump administration and Republican Congress can no longer afford to avoid the threat” that the Brotherhood poses to “Americans and American national security,” the far-sighted Texan, Senator Ted Cruz, warned in July. That’s when he introduced a bill to designate the group for what it is. Mr. Trump was on the verge of such a designation in his first term, but legal eagles at the Pentagon and the Department of State reportedly blocked the effort.Now the Muslim Brotherhood’s tentacles are spread around the world via multinational influence efforts. Our universities, think tanks, and social media stars are being seduced, and at times even financed, by the Brotherhood. They inject its ideology into the American bloodstream. No wonder that last week Governor Greg Abbott of Texas designated the Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations as foreign terror organizations.“The Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR have long made their goals clear: to forcibly impose Sharia law and establish Islam’s ‘mastership of the world,’” Mr. Abbott said. Regardless of the Lone Star governor’s motives, the move indicates a spreading concern about the growing power of the Islamist groups in America. That power, though, can hardly exist without the efforts of, among others, the state of Qatar. Technically, the Gulf emirate disbanded the Qatari branch of the Muslim Brotherhood back in 1999. Yet, Doha hosts Muslim Brotherhood operatives that other Arab countries consider to be a malignant presence. Leaders of Hamas reside at Doha’s top luxury hotels. Al Jazeera constantly beams MB-inspired messages to the entire Arab world. So much so that for half a decade several Arab countries isolated Qatar over its subversive activities. Those countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and other Arab and Muslim regimes outlaw and fight the Brotherhood. On the other side of the ledger are Qatar and Turkey, which ally themselves with MB ideology while they accommodate and finance their world-wide activities. Doha is donating large sums to top American educational institutions, where Islamism often takes hold. Qatar also hosts America’s largest air force base in the Middle East, while Turkey is a NATO ally. “They talk about you as though you’re not a nice person, and you happen to be a nice person, you happen to live in a tough neighborhood,” Mr. Trump told Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani of Qatar last month. Turning to Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Mr. Trump added, “He’s a tough cookie, but he’s been my friend.” With friends like this, can America effectively push back against one of the world’s most destructive ideologies? Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit last week may have convinced Mr. Trump to designate the Brotherhood, a group that “endangers stability throughout the Middle East and beyond,” as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said over the weekend. The question remains, though: Will America also confront its sponsors?

Designating the Muslim Brotherhood

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