Neocons and Israel, not the whole establishment, first pushed Islamism as the new enemy

Evidence

Even at this stage, though, “terrorists” did not replace the Soviet Union as the new global enemy of the United States; instead, the dominant thinking in policy circles was that Islamist organizations that used political violence were one force among many that could upset its post–Cold War vision. However, pockets of the ruling elite, particularly the neo-conservatives, began to write about “Islamic fundamentalism” as a potential key threat to US interests. The Israeli political class similarly tried to win the United States and Europe to viewing Islamism as their new larger-than-life enemy. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 426

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Feeds the reader’s MOC: shows the standing-apparatus loop was seeded by a faction, not the whole apparatus, at least on the US side.

Related

• Neoconservatives campaigned to replace the Soviet enemy with Islamism (similarity 0.91)
• Neocons partnered with Likud to frame the terrorist as a civilizational threat (similarity 0.90)
• Neocons needed Islam as a unifying substitute for the USSR enemy (similarity 0.88)
• Neocons replaced the Soviet enemy with an Islamic civilizational threat (similarity 0.88)
• The 1984 conference shifted the enemy label from Arabs to state-backed Islamism (similarity 0.88)
• The Islam-fascism equation derived from Likud-style Zionism among neoconservatives (similarity 0.86)
• The 1984 conference framed terrorism as state-sponsored by Soviet Union and Iran (similarity 0.85)
• Islam served neocons as a substitute Cold War enemy when the USSR collapsed (similarity 0.85)
• US policymakers treated Islamist movements as allies before the Iranian Revolution. (similarity 0.84)
• US and Israeli conservatives jointly framed the global Arab terrorist threat (similarity 0.84)
• US support for Islamists continued in the 1980s despite threats to Israel (similarity 0.84)
• US global dominance in the Middle East required Israel as the region’s key ally (similarity 0.84)
• Both neocons and realists deploy an Islamic threat frame serving shared US dominance (similarity 0.84)
• The Arab and Islamic terrorist archetype originated from the neocon-Likud alliance after 1979 (similarity 0.84)
• Neocons urged Israel to destabilize Arab states to defeat the Palestinian cause (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• Neoconservatives and Israel pushed Islamism as the post-Soviet enemy #corroborates (0.98)
• Neocons replaced the Soviet enemy with an Islamic civilizational threat #corroborates (0.95) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 427
• Neocons needed Islam as a unifying substitute for the USSR enemy #corroborates (0.93) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 687
• Neoconservatives paired with Israel’s Likud to frame the terrorist as an enemy of civilization #expands (0.92)