US policy treated Islam as good or bad depending on imperial alignment

Evidence

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 was the pivotal moment that shifted US attitudes against what the West soon labeled “Islamic fundamentalism.” The popular revolt successfully toppled the US-backed Shah, who had ruled with an iron fist. The revolution was the product of deep discontent among workers, students, peasants, and traders (or bazaaris) against the Shah. Iran’s workers, in particular its oil workers, were the key muscle that brought the Shah down, but were unable to play an independent role. This allowed Khomeini to maneuver between various factions over the course of two years and finally to take power for the Islamic Republican Party, as historian Nikki Keddie and others have argued. When Khomeini took over the leadership of the revolution and established what he called an Islamic state, it provided inspiration to organizations of political Islam in the region, who saw their hopes and dreams realized. The United States ratcheted up the negative “Islam” frame. “Bad” Muslims had overthrown the “good” secular Shah. Nevertheless, the Reagan administration armed Iran during its war with Iraq, in what came to be known as the Iran-Contra scandal. Further, in the context of the Cold War, the US cultivated other Islamist formations in a proxy war against the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and the United States armed and trained the Afghan mujahideen rebels, who policymakers viewed as advancing imperial interests. Al-Qaeda emerged out of the mujahideen. Thus began a period of contradiction when “Islam” was both a positive and negative construct depending on whether actors supported or militated against US imperial aims. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 395

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Corroborates and sharpens the claim that anti-Muslim frames track imperial interests, not genuine religious concerns — complementary context to the immodesty-panics piece showing moral panics as political instruments, though that is on dress.
• XREF: Confirms and expands the vault’s Aziz/Razack/Rana cluster on ‘good/bad Muslim’ as a US policy frame; supplies the 1979 origin point they often gesture toward. — connects to: The good versus bad Muslim label tracks support for US empire rather than facts. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 87; Good and bad Muslim designations follow support for US empire — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 87; Islamist groups were judged purely by their utility to US oil and business interests — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 410 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• US foreign policy judges Muslim peoples solely by alignment with imperial aims #corroborates (0.97)
• US hostility to Islamism depended on whether it served US interests #corroborates (0.95) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 233
• US imperial interests, not Islamist actions, determine Islamist ally or enemy status #corroborates (0.93) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 278
• Muslims are judged good or bad by loyalty to the US, not piety. #expands (0.88) — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 110
• Liberal inclusion of good Muslims is conditional on embracing empire #expands (0.80)
• US administrations used symbolic inclusion of Islam to recruit Muslims into state interests. #corroborates (0.72)