How the War on Terror Elevated Europe’s Far Right: A 9/11 Anniversary Analysis

Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, the political landscape of Europe remains deeply influenced by the geopolitical order established in their wake. The Global War on Terror (GWOT) served as a catalyst that allowed far-right parties across the continent to transcend their previous marginalization and gain significant political prominence. While Islamophobic narratives had been percolating within European far-right circles for years, the post-2001 global policy environment legitimized this anti-Muslim racism, transforming it from an fringe stance into a mainstream political force.

Before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which killed 2,977 people, far-right parties in Europe were largely excluded from power due to their historical ties to anti-Semitism and fascist nostalgia. However, the ideological ground was already shifting. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, parties such as France’s Front National, now the Rassemblement National, and Austria’s Freedom Party began redirecting their racism toward Islam, rebranding Arabs, Black communities, and Turks as the new “enemy within.” In the Netherlands, politician Pim Fortuyn had already introduced overt Islamophobia to the political discourse with his 1990s book, Against the Islamisation of Our Culture.

The September 11 attacks provided the far right with an opportunity it did not have to construct from scratch. President George W. Bush’s declaration of a Global War on Terror, coupled with his ultimatum that nations were either “with us or with the terrorists,” left European governments with limited diplomatic flexibility. More than a dozen European countries joined the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, while twelve supported the invasion of Iraq, with the UK and Poland taking major combat roles. Although France and Germany opposed the Iraq war, the broader coalition effort reinforced a narrative that conflated Islam with terrorism.

This conflict was accompanied by blatantly Islamophobic media coverage across Europe, which depicted Muslims as an inherent threat. Subsequent attacks by al-Qaeda affiliates in Madrid and London intensified the perception that the enemy was already domestic. Meanwhile, European governments, even while the far right was still largely barred from executive power, implemented their own restrictive measures. These included counter-extremism programs like the UK’s Prevent strategy, cooperation in hosting CIA “black sites,” and facilitating rendition flights to Guantanamo Bay. These policies operated on the premise that Muslim religious belief was a dormant threat capable of being activated into violence.

The ideological framework supporting these measures was bolstered by self-styled experts such as Pamela Geller, Frank Gaffney, Daniel Pipes, and Robert Spencer. These figures helped forge a transatlantic “Counter-Jihad Movement,” a network of anti-Muslim organizations, politicians, and activists united by the belief that Western civilization is under attack by Islam. Beginning in 2007, this movement utilized the OSCE’s annual Human Dimension Implementation Meeting to infiltrate policy circles in Europe and North America.

Far-right leaders from nations including Austria, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden began convening at annual counter-jihad conferences. Long before Geller’s 2010 campaign against the proposed Ground Zero community center, European counterparts were organizing transnationally against mosque construction. In 2008, the Cities Against Islamisation initiative united far-right leaders and activists from across Europe and the US in marches against Islamic infrastructure.

Over time, this anti-Muslim mobilization proved electorally viable. Far-right movements first pressured mainstream parties to adopt their rhetoric and later entered coalition governments in countries ranging from Austria and Hungary to the Netherlands and Italy. In Denmark and Sweden, they became kingmakers, shaping policy from outside the cabinet. Consequently, anti-Muslim policies have expanded significantly, including bans on full-face veils, restrictions on hijabs for public employees and students, and severe limitations on mosque construction.

As Muslims have pursued greater educational and professional success, the securitized discourse of the GWOT has adapted. The old accusation that Muslims refuse to integrate has been replaced by a conspiracy theory suggesting that successful Muslims are secretly subverting Western societies—a trope historically directed at Jewish communities. Several governments have institutionalized this suspicion through strict surveillance of mosques and Muslim-led civil society organizations, framing these actions as necessary to combat “political Islam” or “Islamist separatism.” The tolerated Muslim in this framework is one who remains invisible and does not challenge the status quo.

The language and infrastructure built during the Global War on Terror allowed these attitudes to take root and expand largely unchallenged. With much of Europe still reluctant to confront its histories of colonialism, racism, and fascism, Islamophobia has become an accepted political position—one that the far right actively cultivated rather than merely exploited.