State interests, not religion, defined early US dealings with Muslims.

Evidence

The one constant underlying the various zigzags in attitudes among the US ruling class is that Islamists were pegged as allies or enemies based on US interests and political hegemony. The debate between confrontationists and accommodationists within the foreign policy establishment does not question the right of the United States to assert its power around the world. Thus, this debate is more aptly characterized as a tactical disagreement between conservative (or, more aptly, neoconservative) and liberal imperialists on how best to realize the aims of empire-building. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 278 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Muammar Gaddafi also deployed Islamic symbols and language to legitimize his rule in Libya in the early 1970s. A vocal opponent of the West, he proclaimed that Libya was an Islamic state and that he intended to promote Islamic “radicalism” and “terrorism” around the world. The United States frowned upon Gaddafi but at the same time gave its consent to King Faisal of Saudi Arabia as he attempted to Islamize politics in the region. The logic was that the kind of top-down Islamism promoted by Saudi Arabia could be controlled from above and therefore made to work in the United States’ interests, whereas Gaddafi’s variant could not. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 233 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: Early American toleration debates explicitly extended civil rights to Muslims. — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear:…, 46; Muslim Americans appeared only as hypothetical threat in 1789, not as real persons; US administrations used symbolic inclusion of Islam to recruit Muslims into state interests. (+5 more)

Related

• US administrations used symbolic inclusion of Islam to recruit Muslims into state interests. (similarity 0.92)
• US hostility to Islamism depended on whether it served US interests (similarity 0.90)
• US imperial interests, not Islamist actions, determine Islamist ally or enemy status (similarity 0.83)
• Early US think-tank debate treated Islam instrumentally, not ideologically (similarity 0.83)
• US policy treated Islam as good or bad depending on imperial alignment (similarity 0.81)
• The US once allied with Islamist forces before treating them as enemies (similarity 0.81)
• US policy factions on Islamism differed in strategy, not hegemonic goals (similarity 0.81)
• US policymakers treated Islamist movements as allies before the Iranian Revolution. (similarity 0.81)
• Liberal Muslim-American leaders were co-opted into rebranding imperial policy (similarity 0.81)
• Good and bad Muslim designations follow support for US empire (similarity 0.80)
• US Islamophobia has liberal and conservative wings, both imperial (similarity 0.80)
• The US alternately armed and opposed Islamist forces to preserve its regional domination. (similarity 0.80)
• Islamist groups were judged purely by their utility to US oil and business interests (similarity 0.79)
• Accommodation versus confrontation of Islamists produce distinct liberal and conservative Islamophobias. (similarity 0.79)
• Islam organizations were US allies before the 1979 Iranian Revolution (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• US administrations used symbolic inclusion of Islam to recruit Muslims into state interests. #corroborates (0.80)
• US imperial interests, not Islamist actions, determine Islamist ally or enemy status #corroborates (0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 278
• US hostility to Islamism depended on whether it served US interests #corroborates (0.70) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 233
• Direct contact with Muslims shaped imperial perceptions of Islam. #complicates (0.40) — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear, 118