Federally Funded U.S. Institute for Peace Hosts Pro-Hamas Tunisian Group

 

A pro-Hamas leader of Tunisia’s Muslim Brotherhood-linked Ennahda Party met last month with the federally funded U.S. Institute for Peace (USIP) in Washington.

The Nov. 29 meeting covered the relationship between Islam and democracy in the light of Ennahda’s 10^th Party Congress in May 2016, the Ennahda Abroad Facebook page said. There, the group agreed to stop trying using electoral politics to achieve its religious objectives. This change of tactics likely was caused by Ennahda’s 2014 defeat in Tunisian elections.

The Muslim Brotherhood as Partners

CAIRO/BERLIN (Own report) – Mass protests with numerous casualties are casting a shadow over Egyptian President Muhammad Mursi’s visit to Berlin, which begins tomorrow. Already last week, while preparations for the upcoming talks were being made in the German capital, hundreds of thousands took to the streets in Egypt, against Mursi’s Islamist government. The Egyptian president’s Berlin visit seeks particularly to promote German business in this North African country. Egypt’s economy is, at the moment, in ruins, but, according to assessments by German business circles, holds long term lucrative opportunities. Cooperation with Mursi – and, behind him, the Muslim Brotherhood – was initiated by the German government in the early aftermath of the revolts at the beginning of 2011. This cooperation draws on concepts developed by German think tanks along with US organizations in the aftermath of the Muslim Brotherhood’s 2005 electoral success. Experts are explicitly warning against a “positive assessment of the Muslim Brotherhood.” “Authoritarian tendencies” within their ranks “are evident.”

The Day After

As was discussed in a previous post, the plan was to whittle away at Iran, one country after another until it is isolated.

BERLIN/WASHINGTON/DAMASCUS (Own report) – German-US-American plans for Syria’s transformation along the lines of the Western model are already meeting resistance, even before the possible overthrow of the Assad regime. For months, German government advisors from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) have been working on measures to be immediately implemented following an overthrow of the government in Damascus. These plans are being forged in the German capital in collaboration with the state financed United States Institute for Peace (USIP) and about 45 Syrian opponents, with the objective of installing a pro-western regime in Damascus as soon as possible. Inside Syria, however, it is becoming more and more apparent that influential insurgent militias will not submit to the West and will insist on their independence, according to a study, focused on the example of one military rebel unit near Aleppo. The Islamist oriented forces among the militias would have to be given more influence in Syria’s transformation. An enhanced role of Islamist forces in Syria is also among the plans developed by SWP and USIP in Berlin, which, if successful, could end Syria’s alliance with Iran for the foreseeable future, further isolating Teheran.

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Against Iran

Serious consequences loom on the horizon, given the fact that Islamist forces are playing a prominent role, both locally and in German-US-American concepts, in spite of the obvious unwillingness of influential militias to accept having a western agenda imposed on their post-Assad Syria. Syria’s Islamists will shift the equilibrium in the Arab world – further away from secular milieus, toward a religious conservative order that can get along well with the current leading political role played by the Gulf dictatorships in the Arab League. In addition, under Sunnite Islamist influence, Syria will abandon its alliance with Shiite-Islamist Iran, thereby, leaving Iran without any governmental allies in the Arab world. This exposes the background of the West’s policy toward Syria, which is dependent upon the support of Islamist forces, to achieve its primary objective of a total isolation of Teheran, to block its geopolitical development at the Persian Gulf for a long time to come.

Full article: The Day After (German Foreign Policy)