US officials pathologized Arab nationalists as unfit for democracy

Evidence

John Foster Dulles, as Eisenhower’s secretary of state, called Nasser and other Arab nationalists like him “pathological” for their suspicion of the West and referred to the secular nationalist Iranian leader Mohammed Mossadegh as “a wily Oriental.” Eisenhower himself believed that secular nationalists were little more than Oriental despots. He said: “If you go and live with these Arabs, you will find that they simply cannot understand our ideas of freedom and dignity… . They have lived so long under dictatorships of one form or another, how can we expect them to run successfully a free government?” — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 207

Categorization

• XREF: Concrete evidence of the orientalism in US state discourse that Kumar traces from Dulles to Bush-era mythmaking. — connects to: US Middle East alliances have repeatedly thwarted democracy — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 297; US officials justified backing Arab dictators by deeming Arabs incapable of democratic self-rule — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 368; US officials racialized Muslims as incapable of democracy while arming their dictators — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 368 (+3 more)