As a result the West has fashioned and crafted policies to create secular identities among the Muslims, there has been an increased emphasis on patriotism in the US, with flags outside peoples homes a common seen and people being seen as been unpatriotic and to an extent committing treason, if a flag is not apparent forcing Muslims into developing a secular national identity, loyal to the US and her troops in Iraq. However the US and the West have also had an eye on Muslim populations in the West, in particular due to the failure to secularise them and giving them a nationalist identity, which replaces their Islamic transnational identity as one Ummah. Therefore, the US has post 9/11 used the war in Afghanistan and particularly the invasion of Iraq to try to weaken the growth of Islam in the region. 4) Turning a blind eye to increased authoritarianism in the region, for example the Islamic movement has been hounded in countries, such as Egypt, Jordan and Central Asia refugees, ethnic and religious divisions. Sunni-Shia divide, through the Iraq chaos and the escalation of the Iranian threat and through statements made by Arab leaders, such as King Abdullah and Hosni Mubarak who have spoken of a Shia Crescent in the region 3) Giving the green light to Israeli aggression in Lebanon, with the US aware that the ramifications of the conflict would be wider and impacting the whole region i.e. the fragmentation of Iraq and similar situation developing in Pakistan 2) The creation of ethnic and religious divisions i.e. This policy has involved the following ġ) The weakening and breaking up of Muslim states i.e. As a result, the need to weaken the strength of political Islam has shaped US foreign policy towards the region post 9/11. The neoconservatives have linked US national security to the Middle East, and have realised the ideological threat and challenge which Political Islam poses to US national interests, in particular the ever important oil and gas supplies from the region, which has become more important given the growth of China and its growing need for hydrocarbon energy. The post 9/11 period, would see a radical shift in US foreign policy towards the region, directed by the neoconservatives, which had wanted a more clearer and sharper policy for the Muslim world since the early 1990s and had lobbied the Clinton administration to take on board their views, however this failed and the 9/11 events, the subsequent emotions and outcry, allowed the neoconservatives to manipulate public sentiments to begin its war on terror, which has become synonymous with a war on Islam. However, this US policy failed to take the ideological revival off its course, with Islamic movements and their ideological call growing in strength in the context of capitalistic economic and models of development in the region. #Islam a concept of political world invasion ebook free#This characterised the behaviour of international financial institutions and aid agencies in the region, which were linking aid and funding to economic liberalisation and the development of free markets. The Clinton administration relied on the promotion of globalisation, with the belief that economic growth would lead to democratic and secular development in the region. It is subsequently this region where the US would face its main challenge, in tackling Islamic revivalism in the world. This declaration was naïve to say the least at best it was a knee jerk reaction to the collapse of the Soviet Union, as ideological revival had taken root in the Muslim world since the 1960s and had been developing strength in the region. Post Cold War, Francis Fukuyama's in his seminal work ‘the end of history', argued that liberal democracy had triumphed and its promotion had to be the key basis of US foreign policy around the world. However, an important issue which needs to be emphasised is how the Iraqi war and the subsequent occupation is linked to the Western objective of weakening and containing the growth of Islamic revivalism in the Muslim world. The media and policy discourse on the Iraq war over the last 5 years has focused on and evolved around issues such as civil war, the Sunni-Shia divide, the involvement of external actors such as Iran and Syria. The Iraq Invasion, the War on Islam, Consequences and the Way Forward
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