�New� Egypt But Same Old Shariah

Investor�s Business Daily (Link) (March 22, 2011)

Islamofascism: The media sold the Cairo riots as the birth pangs of �democracy� in the Mideast. Egyptians want �freedom,� we were told. But their version of freedom means voting in Islamic law.

Over the weekend, 77% of Egyptians approved constitutional amendments drafted in part by the radical Muslim Brotherhood. As we predicted based on recent Pew polling of Egyptian attitudes, the post-Mubarak constitution enshrines Shariah law and gives the banned Brotherhood a spot on the ballot.

It was the biggest turnout in the nation�s first fair elections in more than six decades. Only, Egypt�s first test of transition to �democracy� resembled what ended up happening in the Gaza Strip, when Palestinians voted Hamas into power in their first �free elections.�

After winning the 2006 election, which was endorsed by the Bush administration, Hamas vowed not to impose Islamic law. But after almost four years of Hamas rule, secularism has been driven out of Gaza. Women with full face veils are now a common sight. Cinemas have been burned down, novels confiscated by religious police.

Hamas, a wing of the Brotherhood, has met regularly with Brotherhood leaders from Egypt. So has the new Turkish regime, which is also pursuing a version of Islam closely aligned with the Brotherhood. �Democracy is like a streetcar,� Turkey�s new prime minister once said. �You ride it until you arrive at your destination and then you step off.�

The Obama administration, like its predecessor, ought to be careful what it wishes for in the region.

The platform of the Cairo-based Brotherhood�s new Freedom and Justice Party � as pleasing as the name may sound to Western ears � bars women and Christians from the presidency. It also establishes a board of Muslim clerics (read: Talibanesque mullahs) to oversee the government.

This is why it�s so important to define terms in all matters Islamic.

By �freedom� and �democracy,� Egyptians don�t always mean what we in the West mean. To the vast majority, �democracy� is simply the freedom to vote in Islamic law and move toward a caliphate � a goal clearly stated in the bylaws of the Muslim Brotherhood, if only our leaders would read them.

�Democracy� also apparently means the freedom to burn down churches in the absence of a strong Mubarak police force.

Last week, a Muslim mob torched a church outside Cairo, then slaughtered 13 Christians.

The White House assured us that the anti-Mubarak revolt would bring peace and a secular government. It said calls for free elections don�t jibe with desires for an Islamic state. How could it be so credulous? It may have something to do with the fact that its top adviser in the Islamic world is a Brotherhood sympathizer.

Rashad Hussain � the president�s envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the 57-nation Muslim bloc of nations that includes Egypt � has been tied to several Islamic groups identified by the U.S. as Brotherhood fronts, as well as several Muslim leaders named by the government as key Brotherhood figures. They include convicted terrorist Sami al-Arian, whom Hussain defended in a U.S.-based Brotherhood organ and then was caught by Politico.com lying about it.

Before his appointment as OIC envoy, Hussain helped Obama draft his conciliatory Muslim speech as a senior White House aide. Top Brotherhood leaders were invited to attend the Cairo speech, despite Mubarak�s ban on the group.

Wittingly or not, Obama gave his blessing to the Brotherhood, which has global designs. Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi once told Muslims in America: �We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through the sword, but through daawa� � the export of Islam through political infiltration.

To that end, the empowered Brotherhood in Egypt has started a magazine and newspaper called Al Daawa.

Little wonder the administration has been blind to the Brotherhood�s strategy of gradually transforming secular nations into Islamist states � including our own. �