WILL WE GET IT? – AT 9:14 A.M. ET:  The trendies are already out in force, assuring us that Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is just a moderate organization of men in business suits.  Why, all those rotten ideas they had about democracy, women's rights, and other religions?  Oh, just relics of the past.  Ancient history, as Jimmah Carter said, when trying to explain away Hamas's horrible charter. 

That's like saying, in 1940, that Hitler's "Mein Kampf" was ancient history.  Guess he didn't mean it.

Bret Stephens, of The Wall Street Journal, writes a superb piece setting the record straight.  Stephens is the former editor of The Jerusalem Post.  His opening paragraph is a gem:

It's what the good people on West 40th Street like to call a "Times Classic." On Feb. 16, 1979, the New York Times ran a lengthy op-ed by Richard Falk, a professor of international law at Princeton, under the headline "Trusting Khomeini."

"The depiction of [Khomeini] as fanatical, reactionary and the bearer of crude prejudices seems certainly and happily false," wrote Mr. Falk. "What is also encouraging is that his entourage of close advisers is uniformly composed of moderate, progressive individuals."

After carrying on in this vein for a few paragraphs, the professor concluded: "Having created a new model of popular revolution based, for the most part, on nonviolent tactics, Iran may yet provide us with a desperately needed model of humane governance for a third-world country."

Whoops.

Richard Falk is a hard-left apparatchik who has spent his career fronting for some of the worst causes in the world.  His latest venture is as a hired gun for the UN Human Rights Council, one of the most corrupt bodies in the UN.  Falk was hired to "investigate" Israel.  I don't have to tell you the result.

It's easy to be taken in by the Brotherhood: Eight decades as a disciplined, underground organization, outwardly involved in charitable social work, have made them experts at tailoring messages to separate audiences.

And...

Hassan al-Banna (1906-1949), the Brotherhood's founder, was an admirer of the fascist movements of his day, and he had similar ambitions for his own movement.

"Andalusia, Sicily, the Balkans, south Italy and the Roman sea islands were all Islamic lands that have to be restored to the homeland of Islam," he wrote in a message dedicated to Muslim youth. "As Signor Mussolini believed that it was within his right to revive the Roman Empire . . . similarly it is our right to restore to the Islamic empire its glory."

Ancient history, ancient history, didn't mean it, misunderstood.

Today the Brotherhood has adopted a political strategy in keeping with Banna's dictum that the movement must not over-reach on its way toward "[subjugating] every unjust ruler to its command": "Each of these stages," he cautioned his followers, "involves certain steps, branches and means." Thus the Brotherhood has gone out of its way in recent weeks to appear in the most benign light, making an ally of former IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei and forswearing any immediate political ambitions.

Or, as Lenin said, two steps forward, one step back.  It's amazing how totalitarians arrive at the same strategy.

Nor should there be any doubt about what the Brotherhood is aiming against. "Resistance is the only solution against the Zio-American arrogance and tyranny," Muhammad Badie, the Brotherhood's supreme guide, sermonized in October. "The improvement and change that the [Muslim] nation seeks can only be attained . . . by raising a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life."

Oh so moderate.  But who are we to question another's culture?

In 2005, candidates for the Brotherhood took 20% of the parliamentary vote. Gamal al-Banna, Hassan's youngest brother, once told me they command as much as 40% support. Neither figure is a majority. But unless Egypt's secular forces can coalesce into serious political parties, the people for whom Islam is the solution won't find the fetters of democracy to be much of a problem.

And now, from another source, we have this:

CAIRO (AP) - Egypt's long banned Muslim Brotherhood said Tuesday it intends to form a political party once democracy is established, as the country's new military rulers launched a panel of experts to amend the country's constitution enough to allow democratic elections later this year...

...The Brotherhood's charter calls for creation of an Islamic state in Egypt, and Mubarak's regime depicted the Brotherhood as aiming to take over the country, launching fierce crackdowns on the group. Some Egyptians remain deeply suspicious of the secretive organization, fearing it will exploit the current turmoil to vault to power.

Not to worry, brothers.  The Richard Falks of the world, and the useful idiots of the American media, will be glad to help out.

February 15, 2011