Muslim Brotherhood

**Steve Blair** · 06-14-2006

It's also important to remember that the MB is not exactly a united front. There are many sub-factions of this organization, as pointed out in the wiki article I linked to in an earlier post. It's always important to remember that terrorist groups, as well as their political offspring and offshoots, are typically NOT under a "central command" in the sense that we understand it. Their ties are often hazy, united more by a common (or semi-common) idology. This can make them vulnerable to isolation, and also makes them easier to work with once you find a faction that is more compatible with what you want to accomplish.

With regard to Hamas, I do think that we mishandled that one to a degree. They were elected, so if we are the champions of democracy we claim to be then we have a certain obligation to at least make a good faith attempt to deal with them. I don't think it's in our best interest to see the Palestinian situation fall apart, which seems to be happening right now.

**Jones_RE** · 06-14-2006

I think the value in dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood is the possibility of establishing personal relationships between our foreign service professionals and its influential members. Those ties will make dealing with the MB a lot easier should they come to power - and will provide us with some fair warning of their intentions should they think about committing to a course of violent actions. We can safely ignore their rhetoric, although pointing out that it is painful and embarassing to us. Trying to censor the discussion outright, on rationalist Western terms, won't have any effect.

However, I don't believe that providing financial or material assistance to Hamas (or a Hamas lead Palestinian Authority) is a wise course of action. Hamas is involved in active violence against a long standing US ally. Every dollar we give to them, even if it isn't spent on weapons, frees up another dollar for them *to* spend on weapons. The whole point of money is that it's fungible, after all. Similar logic applies to humanitarian relief - if we're shipping over antibiotics, that's money they're free to spend on high explosives.

We support elections, and a representative Palestinian government. However, that government has decided to make statements and take actions overtly hostile to the United States of America. While declaring war on them isn't in our interests, neither is it in our interests to *give* them weapons with which to clobber us. The Palestinians had a choice between a Fatah lead government that would placate the United States and Israel, and a Hamas lead government that would clear up the endemic corruption in the Palestinian state. That's a crappy choice, but they made it. Continuing to fork over money and aid to Hamas is basically paying them not to hurt us - a strategy that will not succeed. Cutting them off, on the other hand, is treating them as a peer - a fellow nation - and not some helpless bunch of refugees whose words and actions have no meaning for us.

**J.C.** · 06-14-2006

I see that supporting reform groups is a popular idea, but you must remember that Diplomatic, Information, Military, and Economic platforms must be used in conjunction to effect change. Assuming the military is out of the question we should progress on a diplomatic, information, and economic front in the region.

As far as groups we might work with, Hamas as an elected entity must be confronted and handled as the elected body of the Palestinian people. We should not take away their funds or use sanctions. Sanctions rarely work and tend to cause insular conditions to setup with in a society. Look at Cuba, Iran, and our ineffectual dealings with Venezuela. Economic pressure by the U.S. will only harden Hamas’ position allowing it to gain an out for lack of progress within the country. However, with money and subtle maneuvering we may be able to get Hamas to establish security, provide jobs, and have a stable government within the West Bank and Golan Heights. These conversely must be followed by reforms by Israel. If we separate the military and political elements of these groups we might see reform in the situation, but because of the networked structure of these groups, they rarely can control all elements with in their networks, requiring substantial political restraint.

Other groups such as Hezbollah might work as with the rise youth groups in Iran pushing for democratic reforms. However, U.S. cooperation with these groups is often a death blow for their leaders. Abbas was substantial hurt in more fundamentalist circles by his perceived partnership with the Bush administration and corruption of Arafat. Any of these actions will have to be back door or through covert contacts. As far as M.B. or Al Qaeda, they are too radical and have to much hate for the U.S. and too widely over arching goals to contend with them. Their might be moderates in the M.B. we could establish contacts with, but I don’t see that as a promising option. As far as hate for Israel and Holocaust denial, that is to wide spread an idea in the M.E. to become to much a factor. Wether we like it or not we will have to move past this to gian any ground in the region, while still ensuring Israels viability.

Lastly, we can not expect any group we support to operate with out a viable economy. Without it, it is like asking a one legged man to run a marathon. Large groups of young men allowed to cluster in mosques and tea shops, without a promising future, educated or not, allows them to sit and think, far too much. Employment with security and an economy to create prosperity is a must for the region. If they don’t have this, no reforms will succeed.

**Stu-6** · 06-14-2006

Originally Posted by Steve Blair

With regard to Hamas, I do think that we mishandled that one to a degree. They were elected, so if we are the champions of democracy we claim to be then we have a certain obligation to at least make a good faith attempt to deal with them. I don't think it's in our best interest to see the Palestinian situation fall apart, which seems to be happening right now.

Agreed we do more damage to ourselves by appearing as hypocrites who do not truly support democracy than we would by dealing, cautiously, with Hamas.

**Tom Odom** · 06-15-2006

Again,

Excellent discussion. The 800 pond gorilla in the room, however, is the U.S. relationship with Israel and attempts to balance that with approaches to organizations/parties/groups ala Hamas and the MB. To use an analogy, negotiations are like a playground see saw; it is difficult to achieve balance when you are sitting on one end.

As a point and not trying to stick a finger in RE Jones eye, I would offer this:

Every dollar we give to them, even if it isn't spent on weapons, frees up another dollar for them *to* spend on weapons. The whole point of money is that it's fungible, after all. Similar logic applies to humanitarian relief - if we're shipping over antibiotics, that's money they're free to spend on high explosives.

The exact same paradigm applies to U.S. funds supplied to Israel that are not accounted for and have served as offsets for projects like settlements on the West Bank and in Gaza.

So in applying a degree of real politik to Hamas or the MB, a DIME approach must look at all nodal linkages with an equal degree of realism.

Best
Tom

P.S.

Adam, here come the phone calls

**Steve Blair** · 06-15-2006

Couldn't agree more, Tom. If memory serves, one of the few ways that the U.S. has been able to convince Israel to "play ball" when it comes to policy decisions is to threaten to cut off either loans or direct aid. And that usually creates a backlash. I'm working off memory here, so I can't really provide any detailed examples.

**Jones_RE** · 06-15-2006

I recall a political cartoon (run sometime after Operation Desert Storm), that depicted Prime Minister Rabin kicking an Uncle Sam ATM only to find no money coming out.

Tom, you're absolutely right about US foreign assistance to Israel. Personally, I think we should have cut that off a long time ago - its continued operation plants an implicit stamp of approval on *every* action Tel Aviv may take which obviously has done us no good whatsoever.

Note that I'm *not* suggesting economic sanctions against any party, here. What I *am* suggesting is that maybe we shouldn't be paying these guys to fight (which is what a policy of supplying either Tel Aviv or the Palestinian Authority with free money from the US does).

**Strickland** · 06-15-2006

While not consistent with the US's current ME policies, what would the ramifications of US support for the "one man - one vote" idea across the area? While we know AQ disdains democracy, by supporting it, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hizbollah in Lebanon, the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, Hamas - the Palestinians in general, and MMA in Pakistan would all come out potential winners. Would this somehow take the wind out of the AQ sails globally, and provide a potential "in" for the US to exploit with all these groups? Would potential "grievance guerillas" or "economically - socially motivated terrorists" not side with these groups as they gained influence, instead of AQ?

Second, what if we "pushed" Israel to except the one man one vote idea across all of Israel / PA? Imagine if we could get the Israelis to accept this in exchange for Palestinian disarmament?

We can all dream.

**Jones_RE** · 06-15-2006

One man one vote doesn't seem to be too much of a problem in Egypt. The issue is who is allowed to be on the ballot! Opening up all elections to fully competitive races is the main issue - and one on which the US would decisively lose to most of those governments. They know their policies aren't sufficiently popular.

Of course, demanding one man one vote from Israel would get them to draw up final borders with amazing swiftness!

<edit>
But yes, opening up more elections in the Middle East and more broadly would indeed give these groups the choice to side with someone besides AQ. And that could only be good for us (and the world) long term.

**Tom Odom** · 06-16-2006

Note that I'm *not* suggesting economic sanctions against any party, here. What I *am* suggesting is that maybe we shouldn't be paying these guys to fight (which is what a policy of supplying either Tel Aviv or the Palestinian Authority with free money from the US does).

RE,

I would apply a different wrinkle on assistance. When signed Camp David was a geostrategic breakthrough because it removed the Israeli-Egyptian struggle from the Cold War game board; we paid for them not to fight and at the time (1978) that was a good thing. In 2006, I believe that across the board, all assistance and development monies should be on an established schedule according to need as set by an international body like the Wold Bank. That would be hard thing for a lot of folks to get used to--many of whom who see assistance as leverage and many who seek such assistance with no intention of accepting such leverage. As an influence and image tool, assistance according to need gets us more for each buck. The tsunami relief effort, the Pakistan earthquake, and other such actions completed without agenda do more as a global IO tool. Put another way, apolitical assistance I believe is more effective politically than the pursuit of political leverage through assistance.

But I will also say that in my experience, the absolute worst tactic is to hold out assistance until a recipient complies--especially if the perspective assistance recipient is truly in need. In some ways I see that in our reactions to Hamas; we stated our "new" policy was to encourage democracy. The Palestinians voted and Hamas won. We said recognize Israel or we cut off funds. Israel had already labeled Hamas a terrorist organization and refused to deal with it. Big surprise, Hamas said no to recognition and we suspended funds. Though of economic importance certainly to the Palestinians, the amount of money compared to that routinely directed to Israel without condition made the face issue to the newly victorious Hamas more important.

In the case of the post-genocide Rwandan government the assistance issue was even more convoluted. The new government (that stopped the genocide) could not get World Bank help until arrears on loans to the old government (the one that planned the genocide) were paid. France played a large role in blocking UN and European assistance to the new government until that government proved it sought to preserve human rights and justice. The same French government was closely aligned with the old government and helped train the folks who committed genocide. Meanwhile the UN, the US, and the West poured relief monies into assisting the "refugees" who were responsible for genocide. The last figure I heard for the Int Tribune for Rwanda was that the court would try less than 100 people for genocide at a cost of $25 million per conviction. Rwanda with well over 100,000 prisoners in its jails could not get funding to speed justice because it the existence of the prisoners and the poor conditions was used as a sign the new government was not committed to human rights. And if it released those same prisoners and they were killed out of revenge, then the issue of revenge killings was also raised as a human rights issue to block assistance.

It was rather like a bizarre marriage of Catch 22.

"Do you think you are crazy, Yosarian?"
"Yes, I do"
"Then you are not because this war would drive anyone crazy. Anyone who thinks he is crazy is not. Anyone who thinks he is sane is crazy."

and

Have you stopped beating your wife?

then applied to foreign assistance.

best,
Tom