Some Gulf rulers wary of Obama Admin. shifts on Islamists, Iran.

Some Gulf rulers wary of Obama Admin. shifts on Islamists, Iran.(Reuters).By Andrew Hammond and Rania El Gamal.  DUBAI - The rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and its ideological affiliates in the Arab Spring uprisings has stoked fears among Gulf Arab governments that the United States may one day abandon its traditional allies as it warms up to Islamists. While the ruling families in the Gulf are currently vital U.S. allies who buy large amounts of American military hardware and facilitate a significant U.S. military presence, some are apprehensive Washington may apply pressure on them to accommodate Islamists who could end up challenging their exclusive rule.
In a number of colorful online outbursts, Dubai's outspoken police chief Dhahi Khalfan has warned of an "international plot" to overthrow Gulf systems of government with Western complicity. The Brotherhood, manipulated by the United States, is working to take over the Gulf by 2016, he said. "Today the Americans are mobilizing the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab nation, for the benefit of America, not the Arabs," he wrote on his Twitter account on Sunday. "There is an American plan that has been drawn up for the region." Though Khalfan insists his tweets are his personal views, analysts and diplomats say they reflect largely unspoken concerns among the United Arab Emirates' ruling elite about the regional popularity of the Islamists and the possibility that the West will sympathize with them as political underdogs. They also reflect fears among the region's Sunni Muslim rulers that, despite being Sunni itself, the Brotherhood is soft on their arch enemy Shi'ite Iran. Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Mursi tried to dissipate such fears at a Tehran conference last week by condemning Iran's ally Syria and urging attendees to back rebels trying to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. Despite pockets of Western-style liberalism in cities like Dubai, most Gulf ruling elites seek to project an image of Islamic conservatism. So the threat they see is not religious or social but political: the Brotherhood advocates playing by the rules of parliamentary politics as a path to government, threatening inherited rights to rule and state-backed clerical establishments.Hmmmm........."By their fruits you will know them".Read the full story here.