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end, Sinai could prove to be the flashpoint that sparks a future war between Egypt and Israel. In that next engagement, whenever it comes (and it’s coming), the Israelis will surely be comforted to know that Egypt’s army will be fighting with high-tech American weaponry. As of this writing, the Obama administration was on schedule to deliver to Egypt in 2013 no less than twenty F-16 fighter jets and two hundred Abrams tanks. 46
    The shipments are part of a billion dollar deal struck with the government of Hosni Mubarak—a longtime U.S. ally, remember—in 2010, before the onset of the so-called Arab Spring that brought Morsi to power. 47 Instead of canceling the deal and telling Morsi and the Brotherhood to go pound Sahara sand, the Obama administration is helping to arm an avowed enemy of the United States and Israel.
    Mind you, President Obama had already pledged a staggering $1 billion in aid back in May 2011 to support Egypt’s revolution (what’s a record-setting deficit when you can help fund hostile Egyptian Islamists?). A dogged, pro-Obama optimist might point out that this hefty aid package was necessary to ensure that the revolution worked out in America’s best interests and solidified Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel, except the exact opposite has happened on both counts, and in humiliating fashion. So how to explain the Obama administration’s ongoing weapons shipments to the Morsi regime? And what about the reported delivery of 140,000 teargas canisters from the U.S. government to Egypt’s Interior Ministry in April 2013? 48 What kind of message does that send from the Obama administration to the Brotherhood’s secular, domestic opposition—the obvious target of said teargas?
    It was the same kind of message Secretary of State John Kerry’s March 2013 announcement—complete with Cairo photo-op alongside Morsi—of an additional $250 million in U.S. aid to Egypt sent to the Brotherhood and the world: come hell or high water, we’re with the Ikhwan .
    The State Department, by the way, had been pushing to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funds to Morsi’s government but was blocked from doing so by Congress. 49

    The F-16s. The Abrams tanks. The teargas. The $250 million. All of it came after the Islamist die had already been cast in Egypt. By then, the Obama administration knew full well what it was dealing with in the form of Morsi and the Brotherhood. Video had emerged of Morsi calling Jews “blood-suckers” and “the descendants of apes and pigs,” railing against “American enemies,” and calling for a Muslim boycott of U.S. goods. 50 Any illusion of a moderate Brotherhood should have long since vanished.
    So why does the Obama administration continue to embrace and empower the Brothers? As we’ll see, the hard-left, morally relativist ideology of President Obama and his team is certainly one major factor. Another is ignorance about the nature of the enemy. Here’s an analysis from a November 2012 piece in Britain’s Daily Telegraph :
    Western governments have been pleasantly surprised by what they have seen from the Muslim Brotherhood.... The relationships are not yet deep, but the first impression of many Westerners is that the articulate, suited and often US-educated businessmen they meet are easier to talk to than many expected. This honeymoon has been sweetened by the discovery that the leaders of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood seem largely centre-Right on the economy. While they have a different religious and political worldview, they want Western investment, trade and expertise; they don’t want to become isolated like post-revolution Iran. 51
     
    That perfectly encapsulates the prevailing view of the Muslim Brotherhood among Western governments. No robes, no bombs, nice suits, welcoming smiles, and fluent English—we can work with these guys. The problem with this insane narrative of the Ikhwan as the “anti-al-Qaeda” is that al-Qaeda would not exist