Biden appointment of Islamist as US religious freedom ambassador likely to outrage allies

Amidst the chaotic withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan and what transpired as an American political disaster which tossed away two decades of fighting, the nomination of Islamist Rashad Hussain as a US Ambassador at-large for International Religious Freedoms came as a bizarre choice by President Joseph Biden. Biden insists on  following the path set by former US President Barack Obama in appeasing Islamists by appointing an ambassador with long standing ties to Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organizations in the United States.

The Muslim Brotherhood-linked Council on American Islamic Relations CAIR lauded the appointment of Hussain for the position in an official statement.

Rashad Hussain, 41, an Indian-American lawyer, and a Muslim, worked for the Obama administration as an Ambassador to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in 2012. OIC is an organization that comprises 57 members and is under heavily Islamist influence.

Prior to that, in 2002 Hussain attended a meeting of the American Muslim Council, led by convicted Muslim Brotherhood leader Abdurahman Alamoudi. Alamoudi was convicted in 2004 for plotting to assassinate former Saudi Arabian King Abdullah Ibn Abdel Aziz. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison and stripped of his US citizenship.

Hussain was listed by the Egyptian Center for Strategic Studies among 10 American Muslim Brotherhood members who were primed to be appointed in high political positions in the United States including the White House.

Emirati Al-Ain news network labelled Hussain as a prominent Muslim Brotherhood figure in the United states. Pro-Islamist Al Jazeera network defended Hussain from the accusation, claiming Egyptian and Emirati media outlet claims lacked evidence.

While never a self-identified Brotherhood member, Arab media outlets continue to allege Hussein is a hidden Muslim Brotherhood member, based on his history of ties to some well-known Brotherhood members worldwide.

According to Emirati 24 news outlet, which cited international sources on his connections with known terrorists, the news outlet detailed the entanglements of Hussain with a number of shady Islamist groups in America.

In 2004, Hussein described convicted terrorist Sami al-Arian as a victim of “politically motivated persecutions,” expressing sympathy for the former Palestinian Islamic Jihad organizer. Al- Arian pleaded guilty in 2006 and was sentenced to 4 years in prison.  Under pressure, Hussain later stated, “I made statements on that panel that I now recognize were ill-conceived or not well formulated.”

The dilemma behind this appointment stems from the Biden Administration insistence on appointing an ambassador who has ties to a radical global organization banned as a terrorist group in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan, and Syria.  The UAE went as far as banning the US-based Council on American-Islamic Relations CAIR as a terrorist group in 2014. Except for Syria, all of the aforementioned countries are U.S. allies.

The other irony is that the position of the Ambassador for Religious Freedom would seem to entail a belief in the freedom of religion and worship. And that conviction is an element lacking in any Islamist group.

In fact, since its inception in 1928 in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood was a main proponent of religious frictions between Muslims, Christians and Jews in the country which had historically sought to maintain a cosmopolitan lifestyle in the early 20^th century.

“We, the (Muslim) Brotherhood, reject any constitution based on secular civil laws, and therefore Copts (Egyptian Christians) cannot form a political entity in this country. And when the group takes over the reins of power and rule in Egypt, it will replace the current constitution with an Islamic constitution, according to which all non-Muslims are prohibited from holding any high positions, whether in the state or the armed forces, because these rights will be limited to Muslims only. We register an objection to such a step, considering that this is our choice,” said Mohamed Habib, former Deputy Muslim General Guide in Egypt for Al Zaman newspaper in 2005.

“The Copts will be subject to Islamic law along with the rest of the Egyptians” added Habib.

The group didn’t stop at spreading hate against Egyptian Christians but went as far as burning nearly 50 churches in 2013.

During the Muslim Brotherhood’s ill-fated one year rule, they and other Islamists banned greeting Christians for Easter and Christmas. For an ambassador who had links with such groups with similar ideology to be the American ambassador for religious freedoms is a sham and sends a conflicted message from the US administration. This is especially true given that there are another 3.45 million Muslims in the United States, most of whom aren’t adherents of the same Islamist ideologies.

Once again, the Biden administration which handed Afghanistan to terrorists on a platter, is tarnishing America’s image by presenting an ambassador with a shady background, as though that will impress Muslim countries, many of which have banned the very groups Hussain has ties with, including CAIR.

This is certainly a case of attempting to be “more royal than the king.”