WurfWhile

I’m not a foreign policy expert, nor an expert on Muslim affairs. I do understand a little about language, however, so when I read Spencer Ackerman’s criticism of Romney in last night’s debate my antenna goes up:

[Mitt Romney in the GOP debate] “‘This is about Shi’a and Sunni. This is about Hezbollah and Hamas and al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. This is the worldwide jihadist effort to try and cause the collapse of all moderate Islamic governments and replace them with a caliphate.’

[Spencer Ackerman’s analysis] Mitt Romney’s War: the total conflation of all Islamist movements. Not only is the Muslim Brotherhood not a jihadist organization, but its very lack of jihadiness is what spawned Ayman Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Suffice it to say that there is no caliphate on heaven or earth that will simultaneously satisfy Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, which goes a long way toward explaining why there is no concerted ‘worldwide jihadist effort’ by these groups to establish one.”

The problem from a political communication standpoint with “Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and Hamas” is, while they are better known of late - they still do not bring up instant name recognition and context for many Americans. What to do? Ah, Mitt’s got it, find some group that has “Muslim” in its name and talks about some sort of united front (”brotherhood” will do) - slap that in there at the end to provide needed framework….

Mitt Romney ironically has his own religious problem among the GOP faithful - which isn’t fair to Mormons - and is why Romney should be particularly ashamed of himself.