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Saudi Purges And Duty To Act
[snip] The US position on Saudi Arabia cooled demonstrably during the Obama administration. This cooling was not due to a newfound concern over Saudi financial support for radical Islam in the US. To the contrary, the Obama administration was friendlier to Islamists than any previous administration. Consider the Obama administration's placement of Muslim Brotherhood supporters in key positions in the federal government. For instance, in 2010, then secretary for Homeland Security Janet Napolitano appointed Mohamed Elibiary to the department's Homeland Security Advisory Board. Elibiary had a long, open record of support both for the Muslim Brotherhood and for the Iranian regime. In his position he was instrumental in purging discussion of Islam and Jihad from instruction materials used by the US military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The Obama administration's cold relations with the Saudi regime owed to its pronounced desire to ditch the US's traditional alliance with the Saudis, the Egyptians and the US's other traditional Sunni allies in favor of an alliance with the Iranian regime. During the same period, the Muslim Brotherhood's close ties to the Iranian regime became increasingly obvious. Among other indicators, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated president Mohamed Morsi hosted Iranian leaders in Cairo and was poised to renew Egypt's diplomatic ties with Iran before he was overthrown by the military in July 2013. Morsi permitted Iranian warships to traverse the Suez Canal for the first time in decades... The timing of the administration's release last week of most of the files US special forces seized during their 2011 raid of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan was likely not a coincidence. The files, which the Obama administration refused to release, make clear that Obama's two chief pretensions -- that al-Qaida was a spent force by the time US forces killed bin Laden, and that Iran was interested in moderating its behavior were both untrue. The documents showed that al-Qaida's operations remained a significant worldwide threat to US interests. And perhaps more significantly, they showed that Iran was al-Qaida's chief state sponsor. Much of al-Qaida's leadership, including bin Laden's sons, operated from Iran. The notion -- touted by Obama and his administration [plus a number of obnoxious web trolls] -- that Shi'ite Iranians and Sunni terrorists from al-Qaida and other groups were incapable of cooperating was demonstrated to be an utter fiction by the documents. [/snip]