A Biden presidency promises a return to the Obama-era Muslim Brotherhood alliance

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden served as Barack Obama’s vice president for eight years, so it is safe to assume that a Biden presidency promises a return to the Obama era, following the same path and repeating the same political, economic and health miscalculations and blunders. Throughout his election campaign and rallies, we see Biden emphasizing the same priorities that the Obama administration concentrated on at the time.

This brings to mind the US’s alliance with Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood during the arduous times of the so-called Arab Spring, which only led to chaos and failure. We can also recall the way the US intervened in the region by relying on the Qatari Al-Jazeera channel with its Arabic and English teams as a media arm for this purpose, thus instigating chaos and political and economic devastation in Arab countries. The region suffered losses amounting to nearly $830 billion. Now we all know that the Arab Spring was nothing more than a bait that Arabs swallowed unquestioningly; it was not a typical historical development, or a social trend that spread due to difficult economic or political circumstances.

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The US’s relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood movement can be traced back to the 1950s, and we can consider it a continuation of the Brotherhood’s relationship with the UK that funded its establishment in 1928. Key figures and operatives of this movement migrated to the United States 70 years ago and assumed important positions in American academic and intellectual institutions. They also infiltrated influential think tanks, which enabled the Broterhood to intervene and pull its strings in order to obstruct US decisions that were not aligned with the best interest of its allies, especially Iran, Turkey and Qatar. Senator Kamala Harris, Biden's choice for vice president, berated the current US administration for withdrawing from the Iran deal. She stated, “America’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal was ill-advised,” which indicates that if Biden wins, this deal would be reinstated and Muslim Brotherhood influences would come back into play.

Former US President Barack Obama allied with the Muslim Brotherhood movement and enabled them to participate in drawing the US’s foreign policy in the Middle East. He supported their projects in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria during the Arab Spring, and his administration had no qualms about amending the content of 800 official documents to remove every hint or reference to political Islam when referring to the Muslim Brotherhood. During his presidency, the Democrats stood against classifying the movement as a terrorist group and they are still firm on this stance claiming that the Brotherhood’s cadres have become part of the fabric of some governments in Arab countries.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden. (File photo: Reuters)

Pro-political Islam movements have shown their outright support for Biden’s campaign, and completely reject the notion of Trump's re-election for a second term, because the latter has been clear about refusing to maintain friendly relations with them and in fact has been outspoken about his intention to eliminate them completely. For this reason, it is no wonder that the Brotherhood has backed most of the Western media attacks on Gulf countries and the Arab region. In my opinion, what should be regarded as a true cause for alarm is that the movement has long had a well-established presence in the US Department of State and the US Department of the Treasury. Arab governments must be more concerned with demanding the prosecution of Qatar, Obama’s Democratic administration, and the US-based Muslim Brotherhood, and demanding moral and financial compensation for the losses suffered due to the Arab Spring.

History has shown time and again that elections do not always bring the best outcomes, a perfect example of that would be Adolf Hitler who emphasized Nazism, ruled with an iron fist, and led Germany into World War II. The Muslim Brotherhood movement has worked on many electoral campaigns for candidates of the Democratic Party. Furthermore, they are trying to establish influential groups with orientations that are not necessarily aligned with the movement’s declared ideology. If we want to take a deeper look, we will see that the Democratic Party and the Muslim Brotherhood share the same Machiavellian approach; they have no problem compromising certain idealistic principles and ideas in order to achieve temporary interests.

This piece was originally published in, and translated from, in Saudi Arabian outlet al-Riyadh.

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