Middle Eastern leaders misread the US as a reincarnated British Empire.

Evidence

Perhaps because of some similarities of language and institutions, there is a widespread illusion in the Middle East that the United States is the old British Empire back in business, with new top management and a new head office. Some, in the radical Islamist camp, look back to more remote antecedents, and see the Americans as the leaders of Christendom, the successors of the Christian emperors and the Crusaders in the millennial struggle of the two world religions for world su­ premacy. This view emerges very clearly in the various writings of Osama bin Laden. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1666

Categorization

• XREF: Ties to the reader’s interest in how empires are perceived versus how they actually operate; echoes Said’s Orientalism. — connects to: Neoliberal international order modeled supervision on the British Empire and mandates system — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 265