In the weeks since the United States and Israel launched their war against Iran, a particular word has been appearing more frequently in western media. “Islamofascism” is having its moment. According to one analyst’s tracking, its use across mainstream media and blogs in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, and Europe increased by 33 percent in 2025 compared to the previous year . The word appears in the Jerusalem Post, in neoconservative journals, and in western tabloids keen to frame the war on Iran as a necessary and noble conquest . But the word is not new, and its resurrection demands scrutiny. This investigation examines where the term came from, what political work it does, and why its return matters for how wars are justified and dissent is delegitimized.
Where Did the Term Islamofascism Come From?
The term was forged in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, in the intellectual circles of American neoconservatism. Its most committed architect was Norman Podhoretz, who died in late 2025, just months before the bombing of Iran began . In a 2007 essay titled “The Case for Bombing Iran,” Podhoretz argued that Iran was not a state with a history, a population, or a society of competing political interests. Iran was merely a front in a global war, and the only appropriate response was air strikes . The term provided a framework: if Iran was fascist, then negotiation was pointless, containment was appeasement, and only military force could suffice.
In the intervening period, the term was applied to specific targets. It was used to describe the Islamic State group, suicide bombers, and those who refused to stop until they were dead . But once a category of belief is established as placing its holder beyond civil protection, the question of who belongs to that category becomes entirely political. The definition expanded outward over time: from the Islamic State to Hamas, to Hezbollah, to the Iranian state, to Palestinian civil society, to anyone who expressed solidarity with any of the above .
This expansion was deliberate. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proclaimed before the world’s media that “Hamas is ISIS and ISIS is Hamas” . He also claimed, in a 2015 speech to the World Zionist Congress, that the grand mufti of Jerusalem had given Adolf Hitler the idea for the Holocaust. The claim was not merely false; it was a fabrication so brazen that it drew rebukes from scholars worldwide, including Israeli ones . Netanyahu’s claim was not statecraft but warcraft. It aimed to establish a connection between Palestinian nationalism and the Holocaust, thus making Israel’s treatment of Palestinians “self-defense” against the inheritors of Hitler’s project .
What Political Work Does the Term Do?
The term Islamofascism serves several political functions. The first is licensing strikes. If a government or movement is labeled fascist, then military action against it is not war but anti-fascism. The normal constraints of international law, the normal requirements of diplomacy, the normal hesitations about civilian casualties—all can be set aside when the opponent is placed in the category of absolute evil .
The second function is delegitimizing dissent. If Muslim political movements and entire countries are fascist by nature, then opposing western or Israeli policy toward them is not legitimate political disagreement. It is either naivety or complicity. The fanatically pro-Israel Middle East Forum, headed by Daniel Pipes, has spent years asking why anti-fascists do not fight Islamofascism, identifying Pakistan and Turkey as the two “main players” . This is not a genuine inquiry. It is an invitation to adopt the term’s premises: that Muslim political movements are fascist by nature, and that opposing them is the natural extension of anti-fascism .
The third function is hollowing out international legal norms. If a population or its government is pre-emptively categorized as fascist, then its defenders are also fascists by extension. This logic has been applied to Palestinian civil society, to Muslim political participation in western countries, and to anyone who expresses solidarity with Palestinian or Iranian resistance to western policy . A recent segment on GB News saw a presenter declare the Green Party to be “the closest thing that we have to a thing called Islamofascism in Britain,” citing leaked WhatsApp messages from a party activist group and a motion on anti-Zionism as his evidence . In a single broadcast, Muslim political participation, Palestinian solidarity activism, and the Green Party were collapsed into a single, undifferentiated civilizational threat, with no analytical basis whatsoever .
How Has the Term Been Used in the Iran War?
The current war has provided a new context for the term’s deployment. It has appeared in coverage of Iran’s internal opposition, in coverage of US-Israeli military operations, and in framing of Muslim democratic participation in western countries . The rhetoric moves seamlessly among all three. Images of women burning hijabs in Tehran become proof of the regime’s irredeemable nature. Death figures from protests are widely inflated. British commentators who have made careers out of defending western fascists now describe Iran’s government as “Islamofascist” .
The timing is not coincidental. The spike in usage of the term aligned almost precisely with the intensification of Israeli operations against Iran and the effort to manage western public opinion on the issue . The word is doing political work. It licenses strikes, delegitimizes dissent, and hollows out international legal norms by pre-emptively categorizing their defenders as fascists . If a permission slip is needed for what is being done to Iran and Lebanon, and what has been done to Gaza, “Islamofascism” is readily available .
Why Do Serious Scholars Reject the Term?
Not a single credible historian of fascism has endorsed the term. This is not a matter of political disagreement but of scholarly judgment. Fascism, as historians understand it, is a specific phenomenon that emerged in early 20th-century Europe. It is characterized by a cult of the leader, a rejection of democracy, a glorification of violence, and a mythology of national rebirth. To apply this label to diverse Muslim political movements across different countries and centuries is to abandon historical analysis for political polemic .
Political scientist Anne Norton observed that fascism is a western invention; to reach for it to describe Muslim political movements is projection, not analysis . Scholar Reinhard Schulze called it an epithet designed to split Islam from the rest of humanity . Author Robert Paxton warned against a term that frames a population not as a community to be engaged, but as a threat to be attacked . Analyst Juan Cole identified the term’s electoral utility as fear-mongering politics dressed as analysis .
As Cole observed when asking why the term “Zionofascism” was never used: “Groups who yoke the word ‘fascism’ to other religions and peoples are most often trying to divert attention from their own authoritarianism” . The absence of symmetrical terminology is revealing. The same analysts who deploy “Islamofascism” freely would never describe Israeli policies as “Zionofascist,” even though scholars of fascism might find parallels in the cult of the leader, the mythology of national rebirth, and the legal discrimination against non-Jewish populations .
What Is the Danger of This Term Now?
The danger of the term lies in what it enables. If Iran is fascist, then the normal rules of war do not apply. Civilian casualties become acceptable collateral damage. Diplomacy becomes weakness. Dissent becomes treason. The hawks of American and Israeli wars against Muslims began using the word decades ago to justify their fanaticism . It is being picked up again now because what comes next will require it .
The term also serves to silence Muslim voices in western democracies. If expressing solidarity with Palestinians or criticizing Israeli policy can be labeled Islamofascist, then Muslim political participation is permanently suspect. The Green Party, a mainstream environmental party, can be described as “the closest thing we have to Islamofascism in Britain” based on leaked WhatsApp messages and a motion on anti-Zionism . This is not analysis; it is slander. And it has real-world consequences for Muslim communities who already face discrimination and violence .
Conclusion
The term Islamofascism is not a serious analytical category. It was forged to justify war, not to understand the world. Its current resurgence serves the same purpose: to license strikes on Iran, to delegitimize dissent against those strikes, and to hollow out international legal norms that protect civilians in conflict zones . The hawks who coined the term decades ago have finally gotten their war. The word is being picked up again because what comes next will require it. And what comes next, if the pattern holds, will be more bombing, more civilian casualties, and more efforts to frame both as necessary and noble acts of anti-fascism .
The scholars who reject the term are not apologists for authoritarianism. They are defenders of analytical rigor against political polemic. The word does not describe reality. It is designed to replace reality with a simplified, Manichaean narrative in which one side is absolute good and the other is absolute evil. That narrative serves the purposes of war, not peace. It serves the purposes of those who wish to bomb, not those who wish to negotiate. And it serves the purposes of those who wish to silence dissent, not those who wish to engage in democratic debate . For these reasons, the term should be rejected. Not because its targets are beyond criticism, but because the term itself is beyond honest analysis .
