Muslim Brotherhood

[Tom Odom]

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