The “war on terror” is a cover for securitization of Western market and security interests – relies upon the targeting of Muslim identity as presumptively dangerous.

Beyond genuine national security threats, countries across the world capitalized on the conflation of Islam with terrorism to serve discrete national interests. This American War on Terror furnished nations with license, and more importantly, a policing template and language to profile and persecute their Muslim minority populations. American Islamophobia,14 buoyed by swift state action including the War in Afghanistan and the USA PATRIOT Act, manifested in a surge of vigilante violence against Muslims and “Muslim-looking” groups15 and had global impact.16 This American Islamophobia was exported by way of policy and propaganda around the world, as surveillance of Muslim communities, enabled by the PATRIOT Act domestically, was emulated abroad, restrictions on Muslim immigration were more closely policed, and most fundamentally, states adopted the fundamental War on Terror baseline that Muslim identity was presumptive, and predictive, of terrorism.17 This new global crusade allowed other states to intensify policing and persecution of their Muslim populations, and in some instances, advance ethnic cleansing campaigns against indigenous Muslim groups. Using India and China as case studies, this Article examines the way that this new crusade diffused into an interconnected constellation of domestic campaigns whereby governments adopted the presumptions and conceptual and strategic frameworks of American Islamophobia to punish their Muslim populations.18 These nations, following in the footsteps of the American architects of the War on Terror, used counterterrorism as both an excuse and an expedient to advance desired political objectives. Part I of this Article theorizes the legal and discursive dimensions of Islamophobia, summarizing the framework I established in previous scholarship. Part II analyzes how the War on Terror, and the political demonization of Muslims, is strategically wielded by governmental regimes to advance political interests. In turn, this Article clarifies that Islamophobia is not exclusively rooted in irrational fear or bigotry, but is also a tool rationally deployed by governments to shore up political might and economic gain. Finally, Part III dissects how the American War on Terror has been adopted and remade by the Chinese government to perpetuate the ethnic cleansing of indigenous Uighur Muslims, and blended with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s militant Hindu nationalism to crack down on the approximately 200 million Muslims in India.19