Not only was the Shah—a key pillar in US policy in the region—defeated, but fifty-two Americans were taken hostage for 444 days. This was a blow to US hegemony in the region, and soon the terms "terrorist," "fanatic," and "extremist," which earlier had been used to describe secular nationalism, were projected onto Islamism. Khomeini came to symbolize all things evil and irrational. As Fawaz Gerges writes, it "was under the impact of the Iranian revolution, then, that Islamism replaced secular nationalism as a security threat to US interests, and fear of a clash between Islam and the West crystallized in the minds of Americans."

XREF: Connects to the broader trajectory of US framing of Middle East threats, from Cold War secular nationalism to Islamism post-1979.

Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politi…, loc. 246