Showdown on the Muslim Brotherhood by Patrick Poole

"I must admit that I was pleased last week when FrontPage Magazine’s editors informed me that they were about to publish a response by Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke of the Nixon Center to my article last month, “Mainstreaming the Muslim Brotherhood.” Before having had a chance to read their “Response to Patrick Poole’s ‘Mainstreaming the Muslim Brotherhood,’” I sincerely hoped that we might have the makings of an open and serious public policy debate.
I will admit that there are elements to their original article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, “The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood,” that are sound, reasonable and uncontroversial, such as their recommendation that the U.S. must approach and consider each Brotherhood chapter in their respective countries as entities in their own right, rather than trying to consider the vast movement as a monolithic whole; and engaging reformists of all types in the Middle East. Who could possibly disagree? At other times in their original article they rely on making obvious statements of fact, such as that within the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood there are varying sentiments, programs and ideas, and the organization is not a monolith. O.K., no problem here."

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