The statements made by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about Islam and Muslims suggest that the ideological war declared by former President George Bush has come to an end, and that a new age for the relationship between them and the United States has begun with the Arab Spring. Clinton discovered that there was no contradiction between Islam and democracy, and expressed Washington's willingness to deal with Islamist political parties in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere. The fact of the matter is that relations between the United States and Islamist movements are not new. Indeed, they had deepened in the 1960s and 1970s to confront the spread of nationalism embodied by Nasserism and left-wing political parties that called for Arab unity. In the 1980s, they had reached the extent of a strategic alliance, politically and militarily, to confront the Soviet Union and Communism, and to wage war against the Red Army in Afghanistan. They benefited from this strategy in the Middle East, strengthening radical movements and groups, and helping to develop and arm them – as Sadat did in Egypt in order to confront the Nasserist heritage and to afford himself the space to make peace with Israel. Even secular Turkey, under and after the rule of the military, contributed to strengthening the role of its Islamists, considering them to be in the forefront of the battle against Communism, as the secular army oversaw the building of thousands of religious schools, and made use of their graduates (preachers) to brand Communists and Leftists as heretics. It is in such a political climate that Islamist political parties arose in the country that was formerly the seat of the Caliphate – parties that changed their names many times, before settling on “Justice and Development”, which preserved the special relationship between Ankara and Washington, and became in the eyes of the latter the model of “Islamic democracy”, and of the “lack of contradiction” between Islam and Western and American values (the judgment of values being here subordinate to politics). The Cold War climate of the 1970s and 1980s led Washington to ally with Islamists, both radical and moderate, to fight the Soviet Union and form a front to combat Communist Atheism as well as leftist and nationalist revolutions. Yet facts change. Indeed, from Mao Zedong's China to that of Hu Jintao, and from Khrushchev's and Brezhnev's Russia to that of Putin and Medvedev, the political facts have changed with the two countries turning to capitalism, and Communist parties no longer carry any weight in world revolutions. The Cold War between yesterday's enemies has turned into a struggle over natural resources and over markets, and Atheism is no longer subject to political exploitation. All have become believers. The past struggle on earth was covering itself with heaven. The alliance with Islamists is no longer an issue of faith – it has become an issue of demanding democracy and freedoms, especially with the regression of nationalist movements and the rise of two Islamist regimes of rule in Iran and in Turkey: Iran, the archenemy competing for influence in the Gulf, supporting “dictatorship” in Syria and the “terrorism” of Hezbollah and Hamas, and opposing Israel; and Turkey, the democratic member of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) and ally of the Hebrew state. The enemy has changed, and it is therefore imperative to return to the old alliance, one which Washington wishes to see attract “democratic” Muslims to confront “terrorist” Muslims, and Arabs to confront Arabs. This would require training and helping the democrats exercise democracy, and discerning enemies from friends. William Taylor, who heads the State Department office that oversees the National Democratic Institute (NDI), announced that US aid to Egypt would include Islamist political parties (Foreign Policy magazine), saying in statements published by the magazine: “We don't do party support. What we do is party training... And we do it to whoever comes. Sometimes, Islamist parties show up, sometimes they don't. But it has been provided on a nonpartisan basis, not to individual parties”. He also asserted that US funding set aside for preparing the elections is being spent in Egypt in coordination with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). We are now in a new phase of the long history of collaboration between Islamist movements and the United States, a history which started with fighting the spread of nationalism and Communist Atheism, and which is being renewed to confront terrorism and “rogue states”. The political fatwas are ready, to serve as justifications and as blessings, whether they issue from a turban-clad sheikh or from Hillary Clinton.
