Secretary Clinton Meetings in Egypt provide Evidence of US Tilt towards the Muslim Brotherhood

Secretary of State Clinton and Egyptian                            Egyptian Marshal Tantai of SCAF

President Mohammed Morsi                                                  with Secretary of State Clinton

Any rational person who viewed the smiling picture of Secretary Clinton with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi would have to believe we were living in a parallel universe. Contrast that smiling picture with the grim one of her with Supreme Council of the Armed Forces head, Marshal Tantawi. The contrast speaks paragraphs as pundits might say.

Madame Clinton came to entreat President Morsi to make a deal with the Egyptian Military leaders of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), maintain the 1979 Camp David Accords with Israel and protect the minority rights of beleaguered minority Christian Copts.  Of course she also threw in  prospects of  several hundred million taxpayer dollars to offset the faltering economy.  $250 million for loans to Egyptian small business and $70 million for a US Egyptian enterprise fund.  She suggested in a  statement issued prior to a separate meeting on Sunday with Marshall Tantawi of SCAF that it was time for the Egyptian military to return to their ‘traditional national security role”.  The reality is the SCAF has investments in the Egyptian economy that it will be loathe to give up control.   

We wonder if Madame Secretary bothered to ask President Morsi and Marshall Tantawi about securing the release of a Boston Pentecostal Pastor, the Rev. Michel Louis and another American on pilgrimage in Egypt. Note the latest development from CBS news:

While family and church members prayed Sunday for the Boston Pentecostal pastor kidnapped with two others in Egypt, their abductor said he has had conversations with intelligence officials about their release.

Jirmy Abu-Mashu told The Associated Press he kidnapped the Rev. Michel Louis and two others off a bus on a road between Cairo and Mount Sinai on Friday, and is demanding police release his uncle from prison. He said his uncle was jailed after refusing to pay a bribe to police.

He said two intelligence officials came to his home Saturday to negotiate the captives' release. During that meeting, he said, he relocated the pastor and the two other captives — a 39-year-old Boston woman who was traveling with the same church group and a tour guide. He said he returned the three to his home when the officials left.
CBS affiliate WBZ Boston identified the female hostage as Lissa Alphonse.

One group that refused for good reasons to meet with Secretary Clinton during her two day visit to Egypt was the beleaguered Christian Copts. Note this report  from Egypt Independent:

Coptic leaders have declined to meet with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, saying that she is recognizing sectarian divisions by meeting with the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis before requesting to meet with Copts.
Individuals who refused to meet with Clinton included business tycoon Naguib Sawiris, political activist Michael Mounir, former MP Georgette Qilliny and former MP Emad Gad.

A group statement issued Sunday said that since the 25 January revolution, Clinton and other US officials on visits to Egypt have held meetings with the forces of political Islam to the exclusion of other political groups. The statement claimed that the US administration has demonstrated their support for Islamism over other political and civil forces.

Perhaps Secretary Clinton may have been swayed by several factors.  The former first family has received tens of millions from Saudi and Emirate leaders who contributed funds for the Clinton Presidential library in Little Rock and large fees paid President Clinton for annual speeches in the Emirates. Then there is their daughter Chelsea who has blossomed into MSNBC Islamophobia correspondent.  Then there is her close personal aide Chief of Staff Huma Abedin who comes from a family of Muslim Brother Supporters.  Huma Abedin you may recall was the wife of former defamed Brooklyn Congressman Anthony Weiner. Her mother Salehi is a Saudi women's college professor and an alleged leader of the international Muslim Brotherhood sisterhood. Her brother Hassan sits on the board of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies with prominent Muslim Brotherhood representatives.

Secretary Clinton will have another tough day visiting Israeli PM Netanyahu in Jerusalem who will be keenly interested in how President Morsi will abide by the cold peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. An Israel vitally concerned about security along its Southern border and the Philadelphi Corridor with Gaza. Ms. Clinton will doubtless broach the Levy Commission Report findings that might throw the tattered Israeli Palestinian discussions into a cocked hat. The implications of the Levy Report might provide Israel with a legal basis for annexation of Judea and Samaria.  

 We also wonder if the bolstering of the US naval presence in the Persian Gulf is as much to prevent another attempted closure by the Islamic Republic in Tehran of the Straits of Hormuz.  Or could that enhanced US military presence in the Gulf region also be sending a message to PM Netanyahu not to undertake a possible unilateral military action against Iran’s nuclear program?  

To many observers Secretary Clinton’s current Middle East visits are compelling evidence that Obama Administration policies in MENA have weakened the US strategic position in the region.

Such are the travails of Secretary of State Clinton since the “New Beginnings” Cairo Speech of President Obama in June 2009.