Caroline B. Glick: Obama's spectacular failure

Two weeks ago, in an unofficial inauguration ceremony at Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt's new Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi took off his mask of moderation. Before a crowd of scores of thousands, Morsi pledge to work for the release from US federal prison of Sheikh Omar al Rahman.

According to the New York Times' account of his speech, Morsi said, "I see signs [being held by members of the crowd] for Omar Abdel Rahman and detainees' pictures. It is my duty and I will make all efforts to have them free, including Omar Abdel Rahman."

Otherwise known as the blind sheikh, Rahman was the mastermind of the jihadist cell in New Jersey that perpetrated the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. His cell also murdered Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York in 1990. They plotted the assassination of then president Hosni Mubarak. They intended to bomb New York landmarks including the Lincoln and Holland tunnels and the UN headquarters.

Rahman was the leader of Gama'at al-Islamia — the Islamic Group, responsible, among other things for the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. A renowned Sunni Muslim religious authority, Rahman wrote the fatwa, or Islamic ruling permitting Sadat's murder in retribution for his signing the peace treaty with Israel. The Islamic Group is listed by the State Department as a specially designated terrorist organization.

After his conviction in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Rahman issued another fatwa calling for jihad against the US. After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Osama bin Laden cited Rahman's fatwa as the religious justification for the attacks.

By calling for Rahman's release, Morsi has aligned himself and his government with the US's worst enemies. By calling for Rahman's release during his unofficial inauguration ceremony, Morsi signaled that he cares more about winning the acclaim of the most violent, America-hating jihadists in the world than with cultivating good relations with America.

And in response to Morsi's supreme act of unfriendliness, US President Barack Obama invited Morsi to visit him at the White House.



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