'Mosque' offers exceptional insights

A MOSQUE IN MUNICH: Nazis, the CIA, and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West. By Ian Johnson. Houghton Mifflin. 318 Pages. $27.

For many Americans, the shocking story of commercial airliners being used like missiles to strike symbols of capitalism, globalization and America's national security interests was simply "stranger than fiction." Yet perhaps stranger is the history of radical Islam in the West.

Its rise has been stewarded by a shadowy transnational organization that is today at the forefront of many security strategists' concerns, and far more radical Islamists' affinities: the Muslim Brotherhood.

In "A Mosque in Munich" Pulitzer Prize-winning Wall Street Journal reporter Ian Johnson diligently chronicles this complex history, one that begins in the least likely of settings, a World War II battlefield. Johnson's research then carries the reader "from Hollywood to Jakarta, Washington to Mecca."

For many Western intelligence agencies, the story of the Muslim Brotherhood's ascension in the West is rife with legalese. And the echoes of massive backfires reverberate throughout Johnson's latest book.

Much of this little-known history, replete with grand schemes to co-opt the Brotherhood's resources hatched by Western governments past and present, remains secret. Despite this, through interviews with eyewitnesses, extensive archival research and lobbying governments to release sensitive intelligence, Johnson exposes several explosive pieces of this puzzling plotline. One truly disconcerting feature of the story is the role the Central Intelligence Agency ostensibly played helping the Muslim Brotherhood establish its foothold in the West.

"Now, like half a century ago in Munich," writes Johnson, "Western societies are seeking Muslim allies, hoping to find people who share our values in the struggle against a persistent enemy." According to him, the history he reveals illuminates "the danger of doing so without careful reflection and scrutiny."

"A Mosque in Munich" delivers a sharp reminder that the West has consistently been confronted by the laws of unintended consequences when dealing with radical Islamist organizations. At a time when the Obama administration demonstrates controversial inclinations to grow America's relationship with Hamas, an organization known to be an outgrowth of the Brotherhood, this book provides exceptional insights of what such policies may mean for our nation and the world.