McMaster: Qatar and Turkey Sponsoring ‘Extremist Ideology’

Says US Needs to Further Oppose Political Islam

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster used a joint meeting with his British counterpart Monday to go on a tirade about America’s upcoming “new” national security strategy, laying out of collection of American enemies centering on the usual ones, and including some enemies who are more traditionally, and diplomatically, American allies.

McMaster

Attacking Russia and China as “revisionist” powers, and accusing Iran of seeking weapons of mass destruction, the real eyebrow raisers of McMaster’s screed were his singling out of Turkey and Qatar, two major US allies, as “growing problems” for American foreign policy goals.

On that subject, McMaster talked up the threat the US perceives from political Islam, and the Muslim Brotherhood. He presented both nations as major supporters for the Muslim Brotherhood, and suggested this was the reason Turkey’s ties with the West have worsened in recent years.

McMaster said that the goal was to prevent another “Morsi model,” referring to the former Egyptian president elected after democratic revolutions in 2011 against the US-backed Mubarak regime. Morsi was ousted in 2013, and replaced with another junta the US is extremely supportive of.

Though McMaster presented US opposition to “political Islam” as necessary to US interests, in recent years the concern has been that, in trying to crush pro-democracy religious movements across the Muslim world, those who oppose the assorted regimes therein will turn to violent revolution as an alternative.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.