> [!note] New - 2026-03-22 ![[assets/covers/american-foreign-policy-and-cultural-impact.jpg]] American foreign policy and cultural influence operate as mutually reinforcing forces that alienate Middle Eastern populations. U.S. military intervention in the region, combined with the projection of Western cultural values through media and religious outreach, generates grievances that fuel radicalisation and anti-American sentiment. From the perspective of those subject to these forces, American power appears unrestrained, hypocritical, and dismissive of their agency. ## Military Double Standards The United States applies inconsistent standards when evaluating military violence in the Middle East. American support for Israeli military actions is framed through the lens of democratic legitimacy, whereas Palestinian armed resistance is classified as terrorism. The distinction rests not on the methods employed but on the alignment of the actor with Western interests. This disparity reveals an underlying ethnocentrism: what constitutes lawful self-defence shifts depending on which nation wields the weapon.[^jabbour-crescent-p40] ## Unchecked Power and Radicalisation The post-9/11 and post-Iraq War era marked a perceived departure from restraint in American foreign policy. The expansion of American military operations, particularly under the Bush administration, appeared to many Middle Eastern observers to operate without meaningful constraints. This sense of boundless American power, combined with military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, shifted attitudes even among those previously critical of Islamic fundamentalism. The growing admiration for Islamist resistance movements represented not ideological conversion but rather a pragmatic recognition that armed confrontation might represent the only effective response to overwhelming external force.[^jabbour-crescent-p48] American foreign policy operates beyond the democratic reach of those most affected by it. An Egyptian citizen may experience the consequences of U.S. policy decisions regarding their country without any voice in those decisions. This asymmetry of power and voicelessness transforms political grievances into existential resentment.[^jabbour-crescent-p50b] Political terrorism and violence emerge as the only available mechanism to assert that one’s opinions matter and to force the attention of those who hold actual power. Absent other channels for democratic participation or grievance resolution, political violence becomes the only strategy through which the marginalised can make themselves heard.[^jabbour-crescent-p51] ## Cultural Influence and Religious Conflict The projection of Western cultural values into the Middle East occurs through multiple channels, particularly satellite television. American Christian proselytisation campaigns and explicit attacks on Islam, the Qur’an, and the Prophet Muhammad broadcast into homes throughout the region generate profound alienation. These broadcasts are experienced not as expressions of religious freedom but as cultural aggression targeting Islamic faith and practice.[^jabbour-crescent-p49] Beyond religious proselytisation, Western cultural exports are perceived as threatening to social and moral order. The unrestricted spread of pornography, atheism, homosexuality, and other phenomena associated with Western secular society appears to violate the boundaries that ought to constrain freedom of expression. While the West privileges absolute freedom of speech and press, this freedom itself becomes a weapon through which Western cultural dominance is enforced. The right to speak includes the right to attack Islamic tradition itself, and those subject to this assault have no corresponding right to defend their culture within Western discourse.[^jabbour-crescent-p50] ## Coerced Cooperation and Regional Stability Middle Eastern governments cooperate with American foreign policy not from alignment but from coercion. The regional consequences of the Iraq wars compel compliance regardless of popular sentiment, generating increasing hatred toward America and facilitating the recruitment of political terrorists.[^jabbour-crescent-p52] ## Selected passages > ‘==As an Egyptian he could not vote for who should be president of the United States, and yet the U.S. administration decided his destiny and the destiny of our country when it came to major issues.==’ > > *The Crescent through the Eyes of the Cross*, p. 50 ([[assets/pages/jabbour-crescent/fulltext-p43.jpg|📖]] [[assets/pages/jabbour-crescent/notebook-p10.jpg|📓]]) > ‘Jordanians had to cooperate with America, or else the whole region would suffer as a result of the 1991 and 2003 Iraq ==wars. My father is not surprised at all at the increasing hatred toward America and by how== easy it has become to recruit terrorists.’ > > *The Crescent through the Eyes of the Cross*, p. 52 ([[assets/pages/jabbour-crescent/fulltext-p44.jpg|📖]] [[assets/pages/jabbour-crescent/notebook-p10.jpg|📓]]) ## Appearances - *The Crescent through the Eyes of the Cross*, Jabbour, Nabeel T. - Chapter 3: Ahmad’s Worldview, pp. 40–52 ## Related [[Ethnocentrism]] . [[Western Evangelisation Methods]] . [[Kingdom of God vs Christendom]] . [[Interfaith Understanding]] [^jabbour-crescent-p40]: [[The Crescent through the Eyes of the Cross]], p. 40 ([[assets/pages/jabbour-crescent/fulltext-p34.jpg|📖]] [[assets/pages/jabbour-crescent/notebook-p8.jpg|📓]]) . ‘If an American Jewish young man leaves this country, goes to Israel and upon his arrival obtains the Israeli citizenship. He volunteers to serve with the Israeli army, and with his machine gun kills Palestinians as he occupies their land, you do not perceive him as a terrorist. No doubt this is […]’ [^jabbour-crescent-p48]: Ibid., p. 48 ([[assets/pages/jabbour-crescent/fulltext-p41.jpg|📖]] [[assets/pages/jabbour-crescent/notebook-p10.jpg|📓]]) . ‘I have seen in him a growing frustration and an alarming change in his thinking. In the past he used to be very much against Islamic fundamentalism, but now he is more sympathetic with those views and he admires their courage. He pointed out that since the collapse of the Soviet Union and […]’ [^jabbour-crescent-p50b]: Ibid., p. 50 ([[assets/pages/jabbour-crescent/fulltext-p43.jpg|📖]] [[assets/pages/jabbour-crescent/notebook-p10.jpg|📓]]) . ‘As an Egyptian he could not vote for who should be president of the United States, and yet the U.S. administration decided his destiny and the destiny of our country when it came to major issues.’ [^jabbour-crescent-p51]: Ibid., p. 51 ([[assets/pages/jabbour-crescent/fulltext-p43.jpg|📖]] [[assets/pages/jabbour-crescent/notebook-p10.jpg|📓]]) . ‘No wonder people in the Middle East are attracted to political terrorism, using violence to attract the attention of the world to their grievances. This was the only way they can made their “vote” count and let the world know that their opinions matter.’ [^jabbour-crescent-p49]: Ibid., p. 49 ([[assets/pages/jabbour-crescent/fulltext-p42.jpg|📖]] [[assets/pages/jabbour-crescent/notebook-p10.jpg|📓]]) . ‘When my father watched TV with dish satellite capabilities, he was bombarded by new TV channels that started in the 1990s and tried to proselytize Muslims and convert them to Christianity. Not only that, but on some of these channels there were programs that blatantly attacked Islam, the Qur’an, […]’ [^jabbour-crescent-p50]: Ibid., p. 50 ([[assets/pages/jabbour-crescent/fulltext-p42.jpg|📖]] [[assets/pages/jabbour-crescent/notebook-p10.jpg|📓]]) . ‘He understood that freedom of expression, freedom of speech and freedom of the press was a high value in the West, but if there were no restraints, there would be no limit to how far pornography, homosexuality, cults, atheism and even Satan worship could spread among our people.’ [^jabbour-crescent-p52]: Ibid., p. 52 ([[assets/pages/jabbour-crescent/fulltext-p44.jpg|📖]] [[assets/pages/jabbour-crescent/notebook-p10.jpg|📓]]) . ‘Jordanians had to cooperate with America, or else the whole region would suffer as a result of the 1991 and 2003 Iraq wars. My father is not surprised at all at the increasing hatred toward America and by how easy it has become to recruit terrorists.’