Islamists Kill To Gain Power in Tunisia: Another Sign Of Obama's Failed Middle East Policy?

Few in the West will be aware that Belaid is the second moderate opposition leader killed in Tunisia during the last three months in Tunisia. During decades of Arab nationalist dictatorship Tunisia-style, murder was rarely employed.

The Islamists have no such inhibitions. They are the people to be afraid of. Consider that in Libya, the most obvious American client in the Arabic-speaking world, there’s no hint of arresting anyone for the murder of the U.S. ambassador and three American officials which happened five months ago! Don’t hold your breath.
Barry Rubin

Barry Rubin writes Arab Moderation Murdered: The Meaning of an Assassination in Tunisia:

Thus, the “Arab Spring” has just been murdered with bullets and hijacked amid bloodstains. Here is the list of countries in the Middle East area currently ruled by Islamists: Egypt, the Gaza Strip, Iran, Lebanon, and Turkey. Syria will probably join them soon. Qatar has a pro-Islamist policy. Morocco technically has an Islamist government though the king neutralizes it in practice. Saudi Arabia is ruled by a strict Islamic regime but opposes the revolutionary Islamists though its money often spreads their doctrines elsewhere. Everyone is being forced into Sunni or Shia Islamist camps, backing radical forces in other countries so that their religious allegiance can conquer.

In this situation, only in Tunisia could the non-Islamists win fairly conducted elections. But an election isn’t fair if one side uses violence to ensure its victory and its ability to transform the country into a social-political dictatorship afterward.

Those who may wonder what is so important about an assassination in Tunisia, may forget that it was the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia on January 4, 2011 that triggered what became known as the "Arab Spring".

But there is more to what is going on than that.

It is unlikely that the Muslim Brotherhood affiliate in Tunisia, Ennahda, was behind the assasination -- Rubin notes that the murder was likely carried out by a small Salafist group.

But that’s the point. The Obama Administration views the Brotherhood as the bulwark against the Salafists. In fact, it is their big brother, often using the Salafists as shock troops to attack Western embassies, oppositionists, secularists, moderates, churches, and women who seek equality.

Ideally when the leader is going to be murdered the masses stand up and say, “I am Spartacus.” In reality, particularly in countries with anti-democratic political cultures, it doesn’t happen that way. Even if the four moderate parties do well in elections they still have to cooperate, having to face a wave of Salafist violence, too. Now if the Tunisian army were to stage a coup that would make a difference. But what do you think would happen if the generals went to the U.S. embassy and asked for America’s support to overthrow the Brotherhood? In Egypt, we do see a sort of uprising against the regime. But without the army’s support it doesn’t seem to have a chance of taking power. Still, one must keep an open mind and see what happens.

The fact is, Tunisia is not the first country in the Middle East in recent memory where assassination has been used by Islamists to gain power.

A similar strategy to what has just happened in Tunisia took place in Lebanon a few years ago, where the Syrians and their Hizballah and other local allies murdered opposing parliamentarians, journalists, and judges until they came close enough to a legislative majority and to intimidating critics that they won the election and currently form the Lebanese government.

And what about Syria where Islamists are headed for power with America’s blessing? Or Washington where the main lobbyist for supporting the Brotherhood is becoming head of the CIA? And what about Egypt where dozens of demonstrators have been murdered by the Muslim Brotherhood regime as the West still proclaims that government’s democratic credentials, the international institutions negotiate the supply of billions of dollars and the United States sends advanced fighter planes and tanks as gifts?

Read the whole thing.

Obama's Middle East policy of supporting Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood and his inability to take action following the murder of US Ambassador Chris Stevens is not going to inhibit the actions of these radical Islamist groups.

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