(Tablet) Lee Smith - An Islamist alliance drawn from the region's Sunni majority spells a kind of long-term trouble for U.S. and Israeli interests that may be equally or even more dangerous than a Shia crescent. The Muslim Brotherhood crescent is powerful because it both draws on the political aspirations of the regional Sunni majority and is deeply rooted in national sympathies. Given a choice in free and fair elections, Arab electorates will invariably put Islamists in power. "Moderate" is a word that gets thrown around recklessly when it comes to the Islamist groups that comprise the new Muslim Brotherhood crescent. Consider the leader of al-Nahda, Rashid Ghannoushi, who may well be Tunisia's next prime minister. He is routinely described as a moderate, even though he has praised the mothers of suicide bombers and believes that the "region will get rid of the germ of Israel."
2011-11-04 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive