In a followup to a recent post on the proposed educational project co-sponsored by the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) and the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy (ICRD), it appears that this project is part of a larger effort by the U.S Muslim Brotherhood to developed formal partnerships with the U.S Government. A new group known as Americans Muslims for Constructive Engagement (AMCE) explains its organizational “vision as:
The United States Muslim Community and the United States Government working together constructively in enhancing national security and national interests of the United States of America.
In pursuit of this vision, the AMCE mission statement identifies the organization’s strategies:
Fostering a constructive partnership between the U.S. Muslim Community and the U.S. Government that would enable Muslims to play a positive and patriotic role in the Global War on Terrorism; aligning expectations and goals so as to contribute the Muslim voice and influence to public and political debates and in forging approaches to domestic and foreign policy; charting specific courses of action and conducting specific projects that will establish and enhance informed mutual cooperation between the U.S. Muslim Community and the U.S. Government, enabling the U.S. to make the best use of the American Muslim community’s potential for building bridges between the United States and the global Muslim Community.
The AMCE leadership is a Who’s Who of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood representing the leadership of virtually the entire U.S Muslim Brotherhood network including IIIT, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Council for Islamic American Relations (CAIR), the Muslim American Society (MAS), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), a former executive of the SAAR Foundation and others. This is perhaps the broadest coalition of U.S. Muslim Brotherhood groups ever seen and may reflect their growing confidence that some form of U.S. government engagement with the Brotherhood is imminent. As noted in the prior post, IIIT was founded in 1980 by important members of the Global Muslim Brotherhood (GMB) and is associated with the SAAR Foundation, a network of Islamic organizations located in Northern Virginia that was raided by the Federal government in 2003 and which is the subject of an ongoing investigation. CAIR and ISNA have recently been named as unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case.