Huntington's theory did not gain resonance because of its intellectual rigor; he was, after all, scathingly denigrated by scholars within political science, law, and other academic disciplines. Rather, his theory gained momentum because of its political expediency on two key fronts: first, because it filled the void for a new geopolitical nemesis left by the Soviet Union; and second, because Huntington's simplified construction of a menacing Islamic civilization was deeply familiar, having already been embedded within the collective American imagination and the halls of power.

Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Unde…, loc. 236