Said’s nemesis did not fade from the scene as a result of Orientalism. If anything, Lewis became increasingly influential in certain political spheres. His ability to popularize and repackage Orientalist ideas in the last decades of the twentieth century gained him solid credentials in American foreign policy circles in light of the challenges posed by the Arab world to US political and economic interests. By making the case that Islam and the West are involved in a "clash of civilizations," Lewis not only inspired Samuel P. Huntington, a professor of government at Harvard University, to develop the clash of civilizations thesis on a larger scale but also helped American and Western politicians shift their focus to a "new" enemy, Islam, as an old enemy, the Soviet Union, was disintegrating.

XREF: Connects to the 'clash of civilizations' thesis popularized by Huntington, which became a major framing device for post-Cold War geopolitics.

Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Intro…, loc. 213