what "pro-Islamist" policies?

Submitted by Jeff (United States), Jun 14, 2009 at 17:18

Why are you saying that Obama's policies are "pro-Islamist"?

You can accuse him of flattering Islam itself in an effort to open a new chapter of relations between the West and the Muslim world, but that is hardly the same as being "pro-Islamist."

In his speech in Cairo, e.g., Obama explicitly noted that movements opposed to Arab authoritarian regimes were not necessarily democratic inasmuch as many of them (i.e., the Islamists) had anti-democratic values and would be even more repressive than today's authoritarian regimes should they come to power. This was clearly a criticism of the Muslim Brotherhood and similar groups. Being willing to talk to or negotiate with representatives of unpleasant Islamist regimes (Iike Iran and "Palestine" under Hamas) doesn't make one "pro-Islamist," except perhaps in some bizarro neo-conservative parallel universe. I seem to recall that we consistently talked to representatives of the Soviet regime during the Cold War, which was of course absolutely necessary. Using your logic, that would have been a "pro-communist" action.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".

Daniel Pipes replies:

I say Obama is pro-Islamist because I read his speech as specifically reaching out to Islamists, who are the arbiters of opinion in the Muslim world. For more on this, see "Assessing Obama's Cairo Speech."

This is hardly surrising given the Red-Green alliance I outlined at "[The Islamist-Leftist] Allied Menace."