Liberal imperialists mirror neocons in framing Islamism as new totalitarianism [connection]
As Kundnani notes, Hitchens shared with Berman the view that “as soon as the West had won its historic battle against communism, a new totalitarianism—Islamism—emerged as a political force. The West, it is argued, is morally obliged to expunge this totalitarian threat both in the Islamic world and among its own Muslim communities.” Thus, although the liberal imperialists use more subtle language, they ultimately end up making a similar argument to the neocons (see, for instance, Podhoretz’s World War 4: The Long Struggle against Islamofascism) and the Islamophobic warriors. Daniel Pipes has similarly argued that “what Nazism or fascism was to World War II and Marxist/Leninism was to the Cold War, militant Islam is to this war [the War on Terror].”
XREF: Connects Hitchens, Berman, Podhoretz, and Pipes as part of a single intellectual camp framing the War on Terror as a continuation of the Cold War struggle.
Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politi…, loc. 570