US administrations used symbolic inclusion of Islam to recruit Muslims into state interests.

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 (#expands, 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 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: State interests, not religion, defined early US dealings with Muslims.; Suppressing critical Muslim voices is a decades-old component of US statecraft.; The US needed Islam as a foil to define itself as Western — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 154 (+13 more)

Related

• State interests, not religion, defined early US dealings with Muslims. (similarity 0.92)
• US hostility to Islamism depended on whether it served US interests (similarity 0.88)
• Liberal Muslim-American leaders were co-opted into rebranding imperial policy (similarity 0.82)
• US policy treated Islam as good or bad depending on imperial alignment (similarity 0.82)
• The US alternately armed and opposed Islamist forces to preserve its regional domination. (similarity 0.82)
• The US once allied with Islamist forces before treating them as enemies (similarity 0.82)
• US Islamophobia has liberal and conservative wings, both imperial (similarity 0.81)
• US imperial interests, not Islamist actions, determine Islamist ally or enemy status (similarity 0.81)
• US policymakers treated Islamist movements as allies before the Iranian Revolution. (similarity 0.81)
• US instrumental use of Islamists produced today’s negative Islam frame (similarity 0.80)
• Good and bad Muslim designations follow support for US empire (similarity 0.80)
• US power legitimated Islamist dictator Zia while fighting Soviet expansion (similarity 0.80)
• Islam organizations were US allies before the 1979 Iranian Revolution (similarity 0.80)
• Early US think-tank debate treated Islam instrumentally, not ideologically (similarity 0.79)
• US allied with Saudi Islamization while praising authoritarian Shah Iran (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• US imperial interests, not Islamist actions, determine Islamist ally or enemy status #expands (0.80) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 278
• The government actively recruits Muslim Americans to police their own communities for extremism. #exemplifies (0.75)
• US hostility to Islamism depended on whether it served US interests #expands (0.70) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 233
• Immigrant Muslims aided the state in delegitimizing black Muslims. #exemplifies (0.70) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 440
• Muslim inclusion in American civic life comes at the price of disciplined loyalty #expands (0.70)
• The state used immigrant Muslims to delegitimize the Nation of Islam. #exemplifies (0.65) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 440
• The US needed Islam as a foil to define itself as Western #expands (0.60) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 154
• Political Islam emerged from failures of secularism, Stalinism, and crises, aided by US sponsorship #expands (0.55) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 371