Devil's Game

1. America's "Devil's Game": Covertly Funding Right-Wing Islamism

But it proved to be a devil’s game.

An unwritten chapter. The United States spent six decades funding and encouraging right-wing Islamist activism, a little-known policy that contributed to the emergence of Islamist terrorism. America's attempt to build an empire in the Middle East and Asia partly on the bedrock of political Islam backfired.

Cynical manipulation. Washington cultivated Islamists, manipulating and using them as Cold War allies against rivals like nationalism and the left. This spawned a force that eventually turned against its sponsor with vengeance, producing radical figures opposed to freedom of thought, secularism, and women's rights.

Playing with Islamism. The US did not engage with the religion of Islam itself, but with Islamism, a political creed originating in the late 19th century. This militant ideology, represented by groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, Wahhabism, and later Al Qaeda, was supported, organized, or funded by the US.

2. British Imperialism Paved the Way for Political Islam

In the half century between 1875 and 1925, the building blocks of the Islamic right were cemented in place by the British empire.

Imperial manipulation. The British, masters of manipulating local affiliations, were intrigued by fostering Islamic revivalism if it served their interests in the Great Game against Russia. They supported figures like Jamal Eddine al-Afghani, the founder of pan-Islam, who offered his services to various imperial powers.

Founding fathers. Afghani and his disciple Mohammed Abduh, with British patronage, laid the intellectual and organizational groundwork for modern political Islam. Abduh, in particular, attached himself to the British rulers of Egypt and created the cornerstone of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Wahhabism and the Saudis. The British also turned to a less ambiguous form of Islamism: Saudi Arabian Wahhabism. They helped the Al Saud family and their Wahhabi allies create the first Islamic fundamentalist state in Saudi Arabia, which would merge its orthodoxy with the Salafiyya movement and become a base for Islamism.

3. Using the Muslim Brotherhood Against Arab Nationalists

The United States and Britain used the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist movement and the grandfather organization of the Islamic right, against Nasser, the up-and-coming leader of the Arab nationalists.

Convenient partners. Political Islam was a useful partner for the US during its empire-building project in the Middle East, particularly against emerging nationalists like Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt and Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran. The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928 with a grant from England's Suez Canal Company, became a key tool.

Counterweight to the left. The British, and later the US, used the Muslim Brotherhood as a cudgel against Egypt's communists and nationalists. The Brotherhood's opposition to Egyptian nationalism and support for vague notions of an Islamic state foreshadowed its later role in opposing left-wing movements during the Cold War.

Secret apparatus. The Brotherhood developed an intelligence service and a violent Secret Apparatus, which engaged in espionage and assassinations. As long as this violence targeted enemies of the king and the British, it was tolerated, operating in a political netherworld between overt politics and covert militancy.

4. The US-Saudi Alliance: Islam as a Cold War Counterweight

To check any movement in this direction we wanted to explore the possibilities of building up King Saud as a counterweight to Nasser.

Entry point and anchor. Saudi Arabia became the entry point and anchor for the American presence in the Middle East, spurred by oil interests and Cold War containment logic. The US alliance with Saudi Arabia, formalized in the 1940s, inadvertently entangled the US with Saudi Arabia's policy of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.

Islam as a weapon. Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers sought to build an alliance with Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi pan-Islamic movement, secretly encouraging Saudi Arabia to rebuild the Muslim Brotherhood against Nasser. They feared Nasser might lead a "Moslem confederation" influenced by the Soviets.

Refuge and funding. When Nasser cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Saudi Arabia provided refuge and virtually unlimited financing for the organization. Saudi kings saw the Brotherhood as a leading edge of the anti-communist movement and a tool against Nasser's Arab nationalism.

5. Islamic Banking: Fueling the Rise of Political Islam

From 1974 onward, the Islamic banking system served as the financial backbone for the Islamic right.

Petrodollar power. The explosion of oil wealth in the 1970s bolstered political Islam through the growth of Islamic banking. This network, often controlled by wealthy Muslim Brotherhood activists, funded Islamist political parties, media, and businesses.

Western connivance. Western banks and financial institutions, eager to tap into petrodollars, provided expertise and technology to Islamic banks. Major players like Citibank and Chase Manhattan facilitated the growth of this system, often aligning with neoliberal economists who saw Islam as inherently capitalist.

Political engine. Islamic banking provided a mechanism to unite wealthy conservatives, Islamist activists, and right-wing clergy. It became an engine for Islamic revivalism, accelerating the spread of right-wing Islamism in previously secular societies like Kuwait, often with direct or tacit support from Western financial circles.

6. Israel and Jordan Used Islamists Against Rivals

"Israel started Hamas," says Charles Freeman, the veteran U.S. diplomat and former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Common enemies. Israel and Jordan, both US allies, saw the Muslim Brotherhood as a weapon against their rivals, Syria and the PLO. This cynical alliance took off in the late 1970s and continued into the 1980s, with tacit US backing.

Fostering Hamas. Israel helped the Muslim Brotherhood establish itself in the occupied territories after 1967, assisting figures like Ahmed Yassin, the leader of the Brotherhood in Gaza. Israel bet that the Islamists would weaken the secular PLO, a policy that eventually backfired as Hamas became a violent threat to Israel.

Against Syria. Jordan and Israel also supported the Muslim Brotherhood's campaign of terrorism and uprisings against the Syrian government. Training camps for Brotherhood fighters were established in northern Jordan and Lebanon, with Israel funneling support through its allies there.

7. Iran's Revolution: A Shocking Wake-Up Call Ignored

Never did a revolution catch the United States more by surprise than did the one that swamped Iran in 1978–79.

Massive intelligence failure. The fall of the Shah was a major failure of US intelligence, which repeatedly underestimated the power of the Islamic movement. US analysis was poor, lacking experts on Iran's subcultures and religious opposition.

Misreading Khomeini. US officials, from liberals to hard-liners, consistently misread Ayatollah Khomeini, seeing him as a vague force or a potential partner for a moderate, democratic transition. They failed to grasp his dictatorial ambitions and the depth of his support.

Contradictory policy. The US policy towards Iran's revolution was confused and contradictory, marked by internal warfare and a lack of clear objectives. Even after Khomeini seized power and took US hostages, some US officials and neoconservatives continued to see Iran's Islamism as a potential anti-Soviet force.

8. Jihad I: The Afghan War as Islam-as-Sword

In Afghanistan the paradigm was Islam-as-sword.

Escalation of policy. The US proxy war in Afghanistan (1979-1989) took the alliance with political Islam to a new, aggressive level. The Islamic right became an offensive weapon against the Soviet Union, a significant shift from the earlier "Islam-as-bulwark" idea.

Brzezinski's vision. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and CIA Director Bill Casey aggressively pursued the idea of using Islam against the USSR, seeing Afghanistan as key to weakening the Soviet empire. Brzezinski envisioned an "arc of Islam" as a barrier and a means to penetrate the Soviet Union's Muslim republics.

Empowering radicals. The Afghan jihad empowered the most radical fringe of the Islamist movement, creating a new cadre skilled in guerrilla warfare and terrorism. It vastly strengthened international ties among Islamists, laying the foundation for groups like Al Qaeda.

9. Jihad II: Pushing Islamism into Soviet Central Asia

Starting in 1984, Casey pushed the Saudi-Pakistan alliance to undertake a much more explosive strategy, launching propaganda, sabotage, and guerrilla activity across the Amu River into the Soviet Union’s Muslim republics.

Beyond Afghanistan. Bill Casey, driven by a messianic anti-communism, pushed to expand the Afghan war into Soviet Central Asia. This high-stakes strategy aimed to stir up Islamic fervor and provoke unrest within the USSR's Muslim republics.

Saudi-Pakistan axis. The US embraced the Saudi-Pakistan alliance, which controlled the distribution of aid to the Afghan mujahideen. Both countries had their own agendas, with Pakistan seeking strategic depth against India and Saudi Arabia aiming to spread Wahhabism and counter Iranian influence.

Fueling future threats. While the cross-border offensive failed to provoke a Muslim uprising in the USSR, it aided the growth of right-wing Islamist extremists who continue to plague the region. Groups like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and those in Chechnya gained momentum from the Afghan jihad's spillover.

10. Post-Cold War Confusion: Ignoring the Islamist Threat

With the elimination of its communist enemy, did the Islamic right direct its wrath instead toward the Great Satans of the secular West?

Uncertain transition. The end of the Cold War left the US facing a region where political Islam was a major player, but without a clear policy. The alliance with Islamism was no longer needed against the USSR, but the US was slow to grasp that Islamists were fundamentally opposed to the West.

Missed opportunities. Despite mounting evidence of Islamism's danger (Iran, Sudan, Sadat's assassination), the US largely ignored the growing threat of radical Islamism after 1979. No real effort was made to understand the transnational organization of Islamists or their potential to turn against the US.

Confused policy. In the 1990s, US policy towards the Islamic right was confused and contradictory, exemplified by responses to crises in Algeria, Egypt, and Afghanistan. While condemning terrorism, the US debated whether to confront or accommodate Islamists, often overlooking the link between seemingly moderate groups and violent offshoots.

11. Clash of Civilizations? A Pretext for Imperial Expansion

Proponents of this view—popularized by Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington—see President Bush’s war on terrorism not as a struggle against Al Qaeda and its radical allies, but as a titanic struggle pitting Judeo-Christian civilization against the Muslim world.

Inflated threat. After 9/11, the "clash of civilizations" narrative gained traction, portraying Islam itself as an existential threat. However, the Bush administration deliberately inflated the specific threat from Al Qaeda to justify a broader imperial expansion in the greater Middle East.

Wrong targets. The Bush administration's war on terror often targeted secular opponents of Islamism (Iraq, Syria, PLO) while making common cause with the Islamic right (Iraqi Shiite parties). This contradicted the stated goal of combating Islamist terrorism.

Dangerous gamble. The Bush administration's strategy risks bringing the Islamic right to power in key countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia by pressing for liberalization without understanding the political landscape. Some neoconservatives even explicitly advocate for dismantling Saudi Arabia and empowering Shiite fundamentalists.

Last updated: May 16, 2025