A long time friend to the United States is Egypt and they placed the Muslim Brotherhood on a terror list as has the United Arab Emirates as well as Saudi Arabia. But even with a petition placed on the White House website to do the same, the White House rejected it. There is no dispute that the Obama regime continues to court the Muslim Brotherhood and it spills into other agencies including the State Department.
Muslim Brotherhood-Aligned Leaders Hosted at State Department
That delegation member, Waleed Sharaby, is a secretary-general of the Egyptian Revolutionary Council and a spokesman for Judges for Egypt, a group reported to have close ties to the Brotherhood.
The delegation also includes Gamal Heshmat, a leading member of the Brotherhood, and Abdel Mawgoud al-Dardery, a Brotherhood member who served as a parliamentarian from Luxor.
Sharaby, the Brotherhood-aligned judge, flashed the Islamist group’s popular symbol in his picture at the State Department and wrote in a caption: “Now in the U.S. State Department. Your steadfastness impresses everyone,” according to an independent translation of the Arabic.
Another member of the delegation, Maha Azzam, confirmed during an event hosted Tuesday by the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID)—another group accused of having close ties to the Brotherhood—that the delegation had “fruitful” talks with the State Department.
“Maha Azzam confirms that ‘anti-coup’ delegation, which includes 2 top [Muslim Brothers], had ‘fruitful’ conversations at State Dept,” Egypt expert Eric Trager tweeted.
Assam also said that the department expressed openness to engagement, according to one person who attended the event.
Trager, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), told the Washington Free Beacon that the State Department is interested in maintaining a dialogue with the Brotherhood due to its continued role in the Egyptian political scene.
“The State Department continues to speak with Muslim Brothers on the assumption that Egyptian politics are unpredictable, and the Brotherhood still has some support in Egypt,” he said. “But when pro-Brotherhood delegations then post photos of themselves making pro-Brotherhood gestures in front of the State Department logo, it creates an embarrassment for the State Department.”
When asked to comment on the meeting Tuesday evening, a State Department official said, “We meet with representatives from across the political spectrum in Egypt.”
The official declined to elaborate on who may have been hosted or on any details about the timing and substance of any talks.
Samuel Tadros, an Egypt expert and research fellow at the Hudson Institute who is familiar with the delegation, said that the visit is meant to rally support for the Muslim Brotherhood’s ongoing efforts against to oppose Sisi.
“I think the Muslim Brotherhood visit serves two goals,” Tadros said. “First, organizing the pro Muslim Brotherhood movement in the U.S. among the Egyptian and other Arab and Muslim communities.”
“Secondly, reaching out to administration and the policy community in D.C.,” Tadros said. “The delegation’s composition includes several non-official Muslim Brotherhood members to portray an image of a united Islamist and non-Islamist revolutionary camp against the regime.”
The delegation held several public events this week in Maryland and Virginia, according to invitations that were sent out.
Patrick Poole, a terrorism expert and national security reporter, said the powwow at the State Department could be a sign that the Obama administration still considers the Brotherhood politically viable, despite its ouster from power and a subsequent crackdown on its members by Egyptian authorities.
“What this shows is that the widespread rejection of the Muslim Brotherhood across the Middle East, particularly the largest protests in recorded human history in Egypt on June 30, 2013, that led to Morsi’s ouster, is not recognized by the State Department and the Obama administration,” Poole said.
“This is a direct insult to our Egyptian allies, who are in an existential struggle against the Muslim Brotherhood, all in the pursuit of the mythical ‘moderate Islamists’ who the D.C. foreign policy elite still believe will bring democracy to the Middle East,” Poole said.
*** But hold on as it gets worse. We have just seen where Yemen fell at the hands of the Houthis, an Iranian proxy militia. In fact it happened so fast, that I immediately posed the question ….has the State Department reached out to normalize relations with a terror faction that assumed control of Yemen, such that U.S. diplomatic personnel had to be immediately evacuated. The answer sadly is yes….. Pentagon Confirms U.S. talks with Yemen’s Houthis U.S. officials are holding discussions with representatives of the Shiite militia in Yemen who have forced the resignation of the country’s president, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday.
But the discussions with the Houthi militiamen do not amount to an agreement to share intelligence on al-Qaeda in Yemen, Rear Admiral John Kirby told reporters.
“Given the political uncertainty, it’s fair to say that U.S. government officials are in communication with various parties in Yemen about what is a very fluid and complex political situation,” Kirby said.
“It is also accurate to say that the Huthis, as participants in … these events, will certainly have reason to want to speak to international partners and the international community about their intentions and about how this process is going to unfold,” he said.
“The U.S. government is participating in those discussions.”
But asked if the Americans and Huthis were sharing intelligence on the movements of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Kirby said: “There’s no intelligence sharing regimen with the Huthis. There’s no formal agreement to do that, and you need those kinds of formal agreements in order to be able to do that.”
Washington has vowed to keep up its fight against AQAP despite the turmoil gripping Yemen, where Western-backed President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi has stepped down after the militia seized the presidential palace.
The United States conducted a drone strike on Monday, killing three suspected Al-Qaeda militants, a tribal source told AFP.
Washington has long relied on Yemen’s government to help it target al-Qaeda extremists and a small contingent of U.S. special forces is deployed to the country to help its army battle AQAP, which U.S. intelligence officials view as the most dangerous branch of the jihadist network.
But U.S. officials are worried that the counter-terrorism and intelligence operations in Yemen will be jeopardized by the upheaval unfolding in Sanaa.
Michael Vickers, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, said last week at an Atlantic Council event that it was unclear if the aim of the Houthi militia “is to take over the state as much as it is to exercise influence and refashion it in a way that they think is more aligned with their interests.”
