This narrative flatters domestic audiences while conveniently obscuring a far more troubling reality. For decades, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel have armed, financed, tolerated, and tapped into Sunni Islamist extremists as geopolitical tools to destabilize rivals. The evidence spans multiple theaters and rests on declassified documents, congressional investigations, and credible investigative journalism.

The most thoroughly documented case is Operation Cyclone, the CIA program to arm and finance the Afghan mujahideen from 1979 to 1992. In a 1998 interview with Le Nouvel Observateur, former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski confirmed that the CIA began aiding mujahideen opponents of the pro-Soviet Kabul government six months before the Soviet invasion—a calculated provocation intended to draw Moscow into an unwinnable war. When asked if he regretted supporting Islamic fundamentalism that gave "arms and advice to future terrorists," Brzezinski replied:

"What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?"