Cold War logic led the US to fund Islamists even after Iran’s revolution

Evidence

This did not, however, stop support and funding for the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, or approval for General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq’s broad program of Islamization in Pakistan. It also did not prevent the Reagan administration from arming Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, at a point when it appeared that Iraq might win the war. The covert operation that came to be known as Iran-Contra involved secretly supplying arms to Iran and using the proceeds to fund the right-wing Contras in Nicaragua against the popular Sandinista government. The logic behind this continued support for Islamists was that the main enemy was the Soviet Union: if Islamists could be used to weaken this Cold War enemy, so be it. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 247

Categorization

• XREF: Directly evidences the reader’s guiding question about drawing a line from a policy stance to a specific covert war; connects to Grosfoguel’s work on how US empire deploys Islamophobia selectively. — connects to: US facilitated Muslim violence when it served Cold War interests — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 288; US power legitimated Islamist dictator Zia while fighting Soviet expansion; US Cold War aid armed the extremist groups that later became the Taliban — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 46 (+20 more)

Broader Connections

• US support for Islamists continued in the 1980s despite threats to Israel #corroborates (0.85) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 264
• Iran’s 1979 revolution redirected US fear from secular nationalism to Islamism #expands (0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 246
• Political Islam emerged from failures of secularism, Stalinism, and crises, aided by US sponsorship #corroborates (0.70) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 371
• US imperial interests, not Islamist actions, determine Islamist ally or enemy status #expands (0.70) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 278
• US hostility to Islamism depended on whether it served US interests #corroborates (0.65) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 233
• The US alternately armed and opposed Islamist forces to preserve its regional domination. #expands (0.60) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 29
• Arab regimes in the 1970s deliberately backed Islamists against secular nationalists and the left #expands (0.60) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 372
• Israel licensed Hamas’s predecessor because Islamists opposed the secular left #exemplifies (0.55) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 399