The "clash of civilizations" rhetoric therefore became dominant in the aftermath of 9/11 and was the ideological basis for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well domestic attacks on Muslims and Arabs. For a while it appeared that the neocons were unstoppable—but they overplayed their hand. During its first term, the Bush administration built a "coalition of the willing" to invade Iraq, rejecting criticisms from allies it derogatorily labeled "old Europe." The war on Iraq, however, did not go the way the neocons wanted it to. Instead of greeting US forces as liberators, the Iraqi people resisted and rejected US hegemony.

Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politi…, loc. 421