America’s 1980s Muslim-world posture was Cold War proxy strategy, not ideology

Evidence

The last decade of the twentieth century was a turning point in American Orientalism. During the 1980s, America’s intervention in Muslim-majority countries came through support of particular regimes and organizations, such as Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, within a bipolar Cold War global order. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 683

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the law-merchant and institutions literature on how context shapes alliances, and to broader foreign-policy scholarship on blowback. — connects to: US cold-war strategy deliberately weaponized religion against nationalism and communism in Muslim regions — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 388; During the early Cold War, Islam was coded positively in US discourse — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 392; Early US think-tank debate treated Islam instrumentally, not ideologically — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 461