Replies

http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=subjects&Area=reform&ID=SP199308

Special Dispatch Series - No. 1993
July 21, 2008 No. 1993

“Egyptian Sociologist Dr. Sa’ad Eddin Ibrahim Abandons His Support for the Iraqi Resistance, Says: “Even if Islam Is a Solution, the Arab Muslims Are the Problem””

SNIPPET: “On December 21, 2007, MEMRI reported on a polemic between Iraqi liberal writers and the Egyptian sociologist Sa’ad Eddin Ibrahim, a well-known reformer who currently heads the Arab Democracy Foundation in Qatar. The Iraqis were angered by two articles Ibrahim wrote on the war in Iraq, in which he compared the Iraqi resistance to the liberation movements in Vietnam and Algeria. [1] The Iraqis were profoundly disappointed at Ibrahim’s position, and claimed that he had abandoned the democratic camp and joined forces with extremist Islam. [2]

On December 29, 2007, Ibrahim published a response to his Iraqi critics in the Egyptian daily Al-Masri Al-Yawm, titled “The Rebuke from the Iraqi Brothers.” In this article he defended his position, arguing that the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter is not clear cut, and that a scientific analysis of the situation in Iraq suggests that it is not qualitatively different from the wars in Vietnam and Algeria.

However, in a subsequent article, in Al-Masri Al-Yawm on May 17, 2008, Ibrahim struck a different note, observing that Al-Qaeda in Iraq had killed 10 times more Iraqi Muslims than U.S. troops, and condemning them together with a long list of other armed Islamist groups. “