The blog of the Community Security Trust, a British charity established in 1994 to ensure the safety and security of the Jewish community in the UK, has posted an article titled “The Intolerance Of Islamist Politics” that looks at a new publication issued by the Cordoba Foundation. The article begins:
April 9th, 2013 A new publication from the Cordoba Foundation, a UK-based think tank that is generally supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood, lays bare the sectarian divisions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims that currently divide the Middle East, and the associated intolerance at the heart of Islamist politics. It also shows how Iran’s reputation has been transformed, via the Syrian crisis, from an ally of Sunni Islamists to a mistrusted adversary.
Called Arab and Muslim National Security: Debating the Iranian Dimension, the paper is a summary of a debate hosted by the Cordoba Foundation for ‘a group of prominent and influential Islamic figures, comprising of activists, leaders, thinkers and scholars from different backgrounds’. The group discussed the concept of Arab or Muslim national security now that Islamist movements are in power, or close to it, in several countries; and how they should relate to Iran. The participants are not named in the paper and consequently the comments in the debate are all anonymous.
The primary theme is that Iran uses its Shiite identity to pose a grave cultural, demographic and political threat to Sunni Arab states, and thereby threatens their security. A secondary theme is that Islamist movements need to coordinate better, both in their theoretical understanding of national security and in their actual policies.
Read the rest here.
The Cordoba Foundation is headed by Anas Al-Tikriti who is the son of Osama Al-Tikriti, one of the long-serving leaders of the Iraqi Islamic Party which is essentially the Muslim Brotherhood in Iraq. Anas Al-Tikriti is also one of the leaders of the British Muslim Initiative (BMI), a part of the U.K. Muslim Brotherhood.
For the original Cordoba publication, go here.