U.S. backing of Muslim Brotherhood irritating!!!

http://www.geostrategy-direct.com/geostrategy-direct/secure/2013/03_27/3.asp

 

U.S. backing of Muslim Brotherhood called irritant to UAE ties

WASHINGTON — U.S. support of the Muslim Brotherhood has marred relations with a key Gulf Arab ally, a report said.

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy asserted that President Barack Obama's support for Brotherhood-led regimes, particularly in Egypt, has generated friction with the United Arab Emirates. In a report, the institute said Abu Dhabi has warned that U.S. support for the Brotherhood was threatening the stability of Gulf Cooperation Council states.

"Differing attitudes toward the Muslim Brotherhood have emerged as a major irritant in otherwise very good relations between Washington and Abu Dhabi, the UAE's leading emirate," the report, titled "UAE Dissident Trial Challenges U.S. Policy," said.

Author Simon Henderson said the UAE timed the launch of the trial of 94 suspected Brotherhood defendants to the arrival of Secretary of State John Kerry on March 5. The suspects, who include judges, attorneys, academics and student leaders, have been charged with plotting the overthrow of the emirates.

"UAE officials seem to be making the point that U.S. support for Muslim Brotherhood-led governments in Egypt and Tunisia is misguided," the report said. "This issue has been festering since the activists were first detained last summer."

Over the last two years, the UAE, a leading defense client of Washington, has repeatedly warned that the Brotherhood marked the greatest threat to the GCC. The 94 defendants have been linked to Brotherhood headquarters in Cairo.

The UAE has also granted asylum to a key member of the former regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, now accused by the Brotherhood-led regime in Cairo of corruption, has been allowed to remain in Abu Dhabi despite calls for his extradition.

The report warned that the Brotherhood issue could harm U.S. relations with the UAE and other GCC states. Henderson, the director of the Gulf program at the institute, said GCC states were challenging pro-democracy efforts by the United States.

"Like other conservative Gulf Cooperation Council states, the UAE regards emphasis on Western-style political freedoms as incompatible with its consensual-though-autocratic system of government," the report said. "For these countries, talk of democracy is a distraction from what they regard as the region's principal challenge: the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran."