March 14, 2012--Santorum's Brotherhood

In a long interview with the New York Times, Khairat el-Shater, head of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt attempted to ally fears that though the Brotherhood will control the emerging Egyptian government, they do not have plans to turn the largest of Arab counties into Iran with mullahs in charge, women in burkas, and Israel under the gun.

He is a multimillionaire and made his money through the free market of capitalism. Thus, he said, American and western corporations should not be reluctant to invest in the new Egypt.

Senator John McCain and his traveling companion, Lindsey Graham came away from a recent meeting with Mr. Shater, feeling that we will be able to work with him. They said they value his "cool effectiveness."

"He is the behind-the-scenes guy,” said Senator Graham, adding, “Very impressive.”

Shater does, though, assert that recent elections that gave control of the country to the Muslim brotherhood was a vote to turn Egypt into an "explicitly Islamic state." Senator Graham had no comment about that.

Nor did the senators notice that though the Brotherhood is a secretly hierarchical organization, with Shater securely atop it, he claims that he favors "open democracy." The Egyptian version of the Brotherhood, however, requires members to swear obedience to the directions of its leaders in the group's religious, political, and charitable work. How the two are compatible we will have to wait to see.

My suggestion--remain skeptical.

In Mr. Shater's own words:

The Islamic reference point regulates life in its entirety, politically, economically and socially; we don’t have this separation between religion and government. The Muslim Brotherhood is a value-based organization that expresses itself using different political, economic, sportive, health-related and social means. You can’t take one part from one place and another part from another — this isn’t how it’s done.

I couldn't help noticing that what Mr. Shater had to say is not so different from what we have been hearing from the increasingly-powerful Rick Santorum who decries the fact that in America we have "absolute" separation between church and state. I suspect that the former senator would be happy to see his version of Christianity as the "reference point" regulating "life in its entirety." And that he, too, would like to see our politics "values-based" as long as those values were derived from his religious views.

After his victories yesterday in Alabama and Mississippi we'll see how he does next Tuesday in less-evangelical Illinois.