US Foreign Policy and Radical Islam

Abstract

The Islamic world has had a profound impact on the foreign policy of the United States. In the latter stages of the Cold War, Islamism, or the pursuit of political objectives by groups in the name of an Islamic ideology emerged as a complex phenomenon that actively began to shape events in Muslim Southwest Asia.² Since 1979 US policy makers have sought to define the role of the United States in the region and vis-à-vis radical Islamism. To date, this has resulted in the reassertion of longstanding US interests — in the form of support for regional stability, allied regimes and access to Persian Gulf oil — as immutable features of US involvement in Southwest Asia. More important, it has spurred the evolution of a new dimension of US foreign policy regarding “acceptable Islamist politics” which in turn raises questions regarding the US stance on the role of Islam in the politics of Muslim societies.

This chapter is adapted from the original title “US Foreign Policy and Islam” in Rattanlal Hangloo (ed.), Approaching Islam (New Delhi: Sundeep Prakashan, 2005), pp. 116–66.