Who could have imagined five years ago, with the ruins of the World Trade Center still smoldering, that the Boston Globe would publish an op-ed advocating normalizing relations with the very group whose ideology spawned and inspires the global jihad? Hear out Muslim Brotherhood.

Authors Joshua Stacher (an adjunct history lecturer at the American University in Cairo) and Samer Shehata (an assistant professor at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University) want us to believe the Muslim Brotherhood is “moderate.”

Funny. That’s exactly what the Muslim Brotherhood wants us to believe. Of course, they are openly dedicated to the complete destruction of Western society and the establishment of a worldwide Islamic religio-fascist state, but let’s not be too harsh in judging them.

Opening a relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood would signal to ruling regimes and opposition groups in the region that the United States is committed to promoting democracy — not just to supporting those who are friendly to US interests. Democracy requires a broader commitment to political participation, inclusion, reform, moderation, transparency, accountability, and better governance.

Furthering contacts with the Brotherhood would not constitute a drastic departure for American foreign policy. Despite the lack of a relationship now, American officials have had occasional contact with the Brotherhood in the past. American government officials last held talks with the organization in late 2001, under the current Bush presidency. Although the Egyptian government has occasionally expressed displeasure at such meetings, the American-Egyptian relationship has not suffered as a consequence.

Egypt receives billions of dollars a year in aid from the United States, and Washington has a responsibility to meet with all of Egypt’s relevant political organizations. After the Brotherhood’s success in the 2005 parliamentary elections and the increasing popularity of other Islamist groups in the region, the United States needs to consider an open and frank dialogue with moderate, nonviolent Islamist groups. And there is no more important moderate Islamist group in the region than Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.

Joshua Stacher is an adjunct history lecturer at the American University in Cairo. Samer Shehata is assistant professor at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University.

Stalin famously said, “When we hang the capitalists they will sell us the rope we use.” (Or maybe it was Lenin.)

Islamists won’t even have to buy the rope. The purblind multiculturalists will hand it to them and put it around their own necks.