December 3, 2020

The American Mideast Coalition for Democracy supports the effort led by Senator Ted Cruz (R, Texas) to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO).  To that end, he has re-introduced a bill that would require the State Department to report to Congress whether the Brotherhood (or Ikhwan) meets the criteria for this designation. We believe it does.

“This designation is clearly long overdue,” said AMCD co-chair Tom Harb. “It is a mystery to me why Secretary Pompeo has not done so already as it aligns with the Trump Administration’s position. An FTO designation would allow the Treasury Department to sanction its financial networks.”

“One reason for the delay may be that Qatar objects,” offered AMCD co-chair John Hajjar. “Qatar is a longtime supporter of the global Muslim Brotherhood. Having a US military base there complicates our ability to deal with Islamists. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states have a long running feud with Qatar over this very issue. Qatar’s support of the Brotherhood as well as their ties with Iran directly threatens all of them.”

“The US is in a bad situation because we don’t want to jeopardize our military base in Qatar,” added AMCD vice-chair, Hossein Khorram. “Unfortunately, this is hampering our ability to confront the largest Sunni Islamist organization in the world. The Muslim Brotherhood is incredibly well organized, including in the United States, where it is especially influential with the Democrat Party. Let’s not forget that President Obama enabled the Brotherhood to takeover Egypt. Fortunately, that was reversed by the will of the Egyptian people who emphatically rejected Islamist rule.”

If Vice-President Biden ascends to the Presidency, we will likely see a resurgence of the Ikhwan’s influence. Biden has already pledged to reverse the Administration’s travel ban from Islamist hot spots such as Somalia. Will Ikhwan-inspired terror attacks on our soil be far behind?