This Just In--Muslim Bros Not Scary, Really Quite "Modern"

The motto of the Muslim Brotherhood may be "'Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope," but the WaPo's David Ignatius doesn't think the outfit is so scary. And he should know, because he sat down for a whole 10 minutes or so and had a chat with them:

To get a sense of the Brotherhood's power and intentions, I met with several of its leaders and visited a Cairo slum where militants might have a foothold. What I found was reassuring. The leaders talk a conciliatory line; more important, they don't seem menacing out in the streets. Like the rest of Egypt, the Brotherhood's members seem to be reaching for a more modern identity.

A "more moden identity," huh?

Is Dave the most gullible dhimmi on the planet or what?

Update: This week's cover of Maclean's claims that Egypt has "changed the world." As if. (Is it just me, or has the magazine gone downhill since Steyn's departure?)

Update: A reality check, courtesy David Warren:

Democracy is itself the loudest false promise being casually offered in the Middle East. It will not be available within days or weeks, in Egypt, or Iran for that matter. It exists only arguably, and then very tenuously, in Iraq -- after nearly a decade of bloodshed. And there, only because Bush and company dwelt upon the "civil society" aspects, consciously resisting "one man, one vote, one time."

Even reduced to "free and fair multi-party elections," democracy remains unavailable for the foreseeable future, because in Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Algeria, and elsewhere, only two "parties" are seriously organized, and neither is parliamentary by disposition. One would be the civilian military order behind each existing autocracy; the other the Muslim Brotherhood, or Islamist equivalents (Hamas, Hezbollah, and so on). These latter have already created their parallel welfare and regulatory agencies, their protection rackets, even a kind of judicial and legislative apparatus, operating through the mosques.

Very tenuously in Iraq, since that the country's constitution is grounded in undemocratic, inequitable sharia law.

Update: Melanie Phillips writes:

...While certainly there are millions of Muslims around the world who do want to live under democracy, the Brothers are totally against any secular rule at all and stand for an extinction of human rights.

They are fanatical Jew-haters. In the 1930s they were effectively created as a political force by the Nazi Party, with which they formulated a final solution for Palestine by ridding it of its Jews, an agenda continued today by their offshoot, Hamas.

Today, they are no less the mortal enemies of the free world. Their leaders have declared war on America, gloating that the US is ‘experiencing the beginning of its end and is heading towards its demise’, and that ‘resistance is the only solution’.

They support al-Qa’ida terrorism ‘against the Americans and the Zionists’. They declared that after Mubarak they would dissolve the peace treaty with Israel.

They support Hezbollah, make overtures to Iran, and openly employ a strategy of simulating moderation to gain power though democratic means in order to destroy democracy...

Other than than, they're ultra "modern."

Update: Salim Mansur pours more cold water on the "democracy" palaver:

In 7,000 years of Egyptian history, states have risen, decayed and been displaced. But the one common thread running through this history is Egypt ruled by autocrats. And this history suggests Egypt is not about to turn back on its past.