Yesterday in Washington, the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID), a think-tank dedicated to warm ties between the United States and so-called “moderate Islamists”–mainly in the Muslim Brotherhood–held its 11th annual conference.
The conclave was titled “U.S. Relations With the Muslim World–One Year After Cairo,” a reference to Barack Obama’s “speech to the Muslim world.” CSID president Radwan Masmoudi crowed that Obama’s Egyptian discourse ended “the era when U.S. policy [toward Muslims] was defined by the anti-terror war.” To also epitomize this rupture with the administration of George W. Bush, the conference celebrated the arrival in the U.S. of Tariq Ramadan, the Swiss-born academic denied a visa under the Patriot Act in 2004 and 2006. A federal court decision last year, reversing the ban on Ramadan’s entry, has become, like the Cairo speech, another over-praised item in Obama’s new dispensation.
