Label Muslim Brotherhood groups as terrorist organizations

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is on the right track, but words are not enough to stop affiliates from fomenting violence

- JOSH HAMMER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

ANDREW HARNIK Getty Images MARCO RUBIO told a radio host on Tuesday that a designation is "in the works" to classify the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations as terrorist organizations.

ON TUESDAY, New York City radio host Sid Rosenberg asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio about whether the State Department intends to designate the Muslim Brotherhood and Council on American-Islamic Relations as terrorist organizations.

Rubio responded that “all of that is in the works,” although “obviously there are different branches of the Muslim Brotherhood, so you'd have to designate each one of them.”

Logistics and bureaucracy aside: It’s about time.

For far too long, the United States has treated the Muslim Brotherhood with a dangerous combination of naiveté and willful blindness. The Brotherhood is not a random innocuous political movement with a religious bent. It is, and has been since its founding about a century ago, the ideological wellspring of modern Sunni Islamism. The Brotherhood’s fingerprints are on jihadist groups as wide-ranging as Al Qaeda and Hamas, yet successive American administrations — Republican and Democratic alike — have failed to designate its various offshoots for what they are: terrorist organizations.

That failure is not merely academic. It has real-world consequences. By refusing to label the Muslim Brotherhood accurately, we tie our own hands in the fight against Islamism — both at home and abroad. We allow subversive actors to exploit our political system and bankroll extremism under the guise of “cultural” or “charitable” outreach.

Enough is enough.