Islamofascism

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Islamofascism was a neologism invented by neoconservatives to drum up support for war in the Middle East.

It refers to the idea of supporting the establishment of either a Middle East-wide or a worldwide "Caliphate." This is somewhat related to the (actual) ideologies of Islamism and jihadism, although "Islamofascism" includes some purely fantastic elements. For example, in the neo-cons' view, all Islamofascists are supposed to be working together in a grand conspiracy against the US. Any conservative Muslim, or even anyone who is not a sufficiently enthusiastic war-hawk, is said to support "Islamofascism."

The whole idea of Islamofascism largely ignored (1) the actual stated desires of the terrorists we were fighting, (2) the grievances of the Middle East as a whole, and (3) the sectional character of Islam, which kept many of the so-called "Islamofascists" from ever coming together in the first place (and actually has opened avenues of cooperation between the U.S. and some of the so-called "Islamofascists"). To say that this ignorance been counterintuitive to progress in the region is an understatement.[1]

The concept's relations to Islam and fascism are both tenuous, since Islam and fascism historically had little to do with each other (Haj Amin al-Husseini notwithstanding); however, the more extreme strains of Islamism can be seen as the Islamic form of the form of authoritarian conservatism sometimes known as "clerical fascism."

Another interesting observation is that multiple governments in the heavily theocratic Middle East and North Africa, which are right-wing and authoritarian enough to be called "fascist" by some, are/were receiving large sums of money in the form of foreign aid from the United States.[2]

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[edit] Footnotes

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