Iran’s 1979 revolution shifted the frame from Arabs to Islamism

Evidence

This changed at the second International Conference on Terrorism, held in 1984 in Washington, DC. During his opening remarks, Benjamin Netanyahu stated that “modern terrorism has its roots in two movements that have assumed international prominence in the second half of the twentieth century, communist totalitarianism and Islamic (and Arab) radicalism.” By this stage, Iran had come to be a thorn in Israel’s side with its support for Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Arab radicalism was bracketed while Islamism took center stage. In short, state actors—particularly the Soviet Union and Iran—were seen as giving life to international terrorism. The PLO was not omitted; its “terrorist mini-state in Lebanon” was presented as “a training center and launching group for what had become a kind of terrorist international.” Presenters at the conference included neocons such as Moynihan, Kirkpatrick, and Krauthammer, as well as Israeli leaders such as Yitzhak Rabin and US politicians such as former Secretary of State George Shultz. A new addition to this conference was a session on “Terrorism and the Islamic World,” which included the Orientalists Bernard Lewis, Elie Kedourie, and Panyotidis Vatikiotis. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 455

Categorization

• XREF: Mechanism evidence for the MOC thread: 1984 Washington conference is the relay station where Arab terrorism turned into ‘Islamic terrorism,’ carried by named Orientalist scholars into US policy space. — connects to: The Arab and Islamic terrorist archetype originated from the neocon-Likud alliance after 1979 — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 473; Islam organizations were US allies before the 1979 Iranian Revolution — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 389; The 1979 Iranian Revolution shifted US policy from promoting Islam to denouncing it — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 407 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Iran’s 1979 revolution redirected US fear from secular nationalism to Islamism #corroborates (0.92) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 246
• Iran’s 1979 events made Islamism the coming Green Menace for the US. #corroborates (0.88) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 254
• Islam replaced communism as the West’s fear narrative after 1979 #corroborates (0.82) — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 90
• 1979 Iranian Revolution merged anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism #expands (0.75)
• The Islamic threat emerged only after the 1979 Iranian Revolution #complicates (0.75)
• Political Islam was not uniformly seen as an enemy before the Iranian Revolution #corroborates (0.75)
• The Iranian Revolution moved political Islam to the top of global media agendas #expands (0.75)
• An intercivilizational quasi war between Islam and the West developed after 1979 #expands (0.75)
• The Iranian revolution reached far beyond Iran into the broader Islamic world #expands (0.72) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 309