Us Versus Them

The intersection of Islamophobia and US foreign policy has attracted considerablescholarly attention since 9/11. Landmark books exploring thisconnection include Mahmood Mamdani’s Good Muslim, Bad Muslim:America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terrorism, and Deepa Kumar’s Islamophobiaand the Politics of Empire.  Douglas Little’s Us Versus Them: The United States, Radical Islam, andthe Rise of the Green Threat is not as ambitious as these studies. It does notforge new theoretical ground in our understanding of how Islamophobiais instrumentalized to bolster US foreign policy objectives. But this is notnecessarily a criticism. Little’s purpose is more modest, though his projectno less difficult. He seeks to provide a lively, accessible introduction to USengagement with Muslim extremists since the end of the Cold War and theproblematic paradigms that have shaped this policy. In this task, he succeedsadmirably ...