Islam served neocons as a substitute Cold War enemy when the USSR collapsed

Evidence

September 11 provided the neocons with the enemy they needed to promote their vision. As Danny Cooper notes, the neoconservatives are “most comfortable when they have … an ideological competitor against which they can define themselves.” While neocons like Norman Podhoretz celebrated the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cooper notes that, lacking a new rival, he was “clearly lost.” This sentiment applies across the board. Gary Dorrien’s interviews with prominent neocons for his book Imperial Designs leads him to observe that “most were anxious to find a substitute for the energizing and unifying role that the cold war played for them.” This new enemy took the form of “Islam,” a “totalitarian ideology” the neocons believe is akin to Communism. As the AVOT statement makes clear, it is not simply Islamists who use violent tactics that they wish to “research,” but “Islam and Islamism” as a whole. By this logic, simply being Muslim made one suspicious; this is a form of cultural racism that relies on the homogenization and essentialization of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 675

Categorization

• XREF: Strong mechanism evidence for the cluster: Islamophobia’s strategic function after 1991 mirrors anti-communism as imperial legitimation. — connects to: Neoconservatives campaigned to replace the Soviet enemy with Islamism — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 414; Neocons needed Islam as a unifying substitute for the USSR enemy; Neocons replaced the Soviet enemy with an Islamic civilizational threat (+14 more)
• SEED: Article angle: the ‘enemy vacuum’ theory of Islamophobia — how ideology manufactured ISIS/Islam as a substitute for the Soviet rival.

Broader Connections

• Neocons needed Islam as a unifying substitute for the USSR enemy #corroborates (1.00)
• Neocons replaced the Soviet enemy with an Islamic civilizational threat #corroborates (0.95)
• Islam replaced communism as the West’s designated global enemy threat #corroborates (0.95)
• The Islamic-terror enemy replaced the Soviet Union as an archnemesis. #corroborates (0.90)
• Islam replaced communism as the U.S. constructed menace #corroborates (0.90) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 302
• The Cold War’s end positioned Islam as communism’s replacement global threat #expands (0.85) — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 240
• Neoconservatives and Israel pushed Islamism as the post-Soviet enemy #expands (0.85)
• The Cold War’s end left Islam and the West mutually perceived threats #complicates (0.80) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 246
• Science fiction aliens substituted Islam for Communism after Soviet power ended #exemplifies (0.80) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 686
• Communism’s collapse left West and Islam as mutual perceived threats #complicates (0.75) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 246
• Western publics and leaders perceived Islam as the post-Cold War threat #expands (0.75) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 579
• Islamic fundamentalism is a modern product of Cold War politics #qualifies (0.72)
• In 1991 Japan and America replaced the USSR as each other’s top threat #exemplifies (0.72) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 596
• Key Islamophobic organizations trace their lineage to Cold War-era neocons #expands (0.70)
• Jihadists believed their Afghan war defeated the USSR and emboldened attacks on the US #complicates (0.70) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1787