Monday, June 20, 2011

Muslim Brotherhood: Riding the Crest of Arab Spring

It's looking more and more like the Muslim Brotherhood is on a full court press in the Middle East. Not only are they on the verge of taking over Egypt, they're active in Tunisia, Libya, Syria and Yemen.

The Arab Spring is turning out to be the Muslim Brotherhood's foot in the door. Where this is going is hard to tell, but the Saudis and Iranians will both be watching and preparing to deal with a stronger than ever MB. There will be a three way tug of war destabilizing the Middle East and so the world.

FROM POLITICALMAVENS.COM:

Muslim Brotherhood: Riding the Crest of Arab Spring

By Walid Phares

In my most recent book, The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East (completed July 4, 2010), I argued that civil societies in the Greater Middle East (GME) and Arab World had reached a “critical stage” in their repudiation of all authoritarian forms of government: regime, theocracy, military and ultra-nationalist. The projections therein were based on a thorough study of antecedent Cedars and Green Revolutions in Lebanon (2005) and Iran (2009) respectively, both with limpid narratives, particularly online, and both auguring a continuation of bottom-up, regime-crumbling uprisings in the region.

Even before the region’s revolutionary meltdowns began, our findings were accompanied by a sober warning—a grueling contest would ensue between the dispersed and disorganized proponents of liberal democratic reform and the Islamists, led by the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Indeed, as soon as the uprisings erupted on the streets of Tunis and Cairo, the Islamist political machine went into high gear. With Al Jazeera’s influential backing and the support of Qatar’s “diplomatic duo” and Turkey’s Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP) (English: Justice and Development Party), the region’s mostly-Sunni Islamist movements gradually rose from the bottom and seized the initiative.

Article continues HERE.