Neocons needed Islam as a unifying substitute for the USSR enemy

Evidence

In the waning days of the Cold War, once it had been defeated in Eastern Europe, a triumphant liberal democracy found Islam as a viable replacement for communism as a global threat. … The theory that Islam is incompatible with democracy, Enlightenment liberalism, and the West in general was encapsulated in Bernard Lewis’s work and then taken up by Samuel Huntington in his famous “clash of civilizations” thesis. … This argument that replaces communism with Islam as the global bogeyman has enormous attraction for those already predisposed to Islamophobia. — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 240 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: Neocons partnered with Likud to frame the terrorist as a civilizational threat — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 432; Fear of Soviet alignment drove early US pressures on Muslim-majority nationalists; Neoconservatives campaigned to replace the Soviet enemy with Islamism — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 414 (+14 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoconservatives and Israel pushed Islamism as the post-Soviet enemy #corroborates (0.95)
• Islam replaced communism as the West’s designated global enemy threat #expands (0.80)
• The Cold War’s end positioned Islam as communism’s replacement global threat #expands (0.80) — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 240
• Islam replaced communism as the U.S. constructed menace #expands (0.78) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 302
• Liberal imperialists and neocons both frame Islamism as the new totalitarianism requiring Western expungement #corroborates (0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 570
• Post-Cold War American identity depends on having a Muslim enemy #expands (0.75) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 54
• Neoliberal theorists conflated communism with Islam as an orientalist enemy. #exemplifies (0.72) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 125