militant-tendency:

… There is a consensus between the neoconservatives and “the realist/liberal camp” when it comes to “the right of the United States to assert its power around the world,” and on American exceptionalism — the idea that America is unique among nations because of its liberal values.

Kumar charts these two trajectories through time and notes that while “[a]fter Vietnam, Cold War liberals backed away from open confrontation and intervention,” preferring, for instance in the Clinton era, coalition building and politically expedient, selective “humanitarian” interventionism, (if possible) with the endorsement of the United Nations, the neoconservatives remained committed to militarism. The difference, thus, is a matter of frankness about the use of violent means to the same imperial ends.

The collapse of the Soviet Union, however, left America with no global foe against which the neo-con militarist fantasies could be enacted. To address this void, even before 9/11, neo-cons like Daniel Pipes identified Islam as the new threat to the West just as communism had been during the Cold War. But the installation of the Islamic enemy as the supreme villain to the West had to wait till 9/11. Kumar notes that “capitalising on this opportunity […] also meant orchestrating an elaborate public relations campaign designed to elicit public support and stifle criticism. Enter the War on Terror and the language of Islamophobia.

Review of Deepa Kumar’s Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire