Christiane Amanpour, the eponymous host of PBS’s Amanpour and Company, reflected on the 25 years since 9/11 on Friday by claiming the attack was “the beginning of intense Islamophobia” in America, which continues to be “so visceral and last to this day.” Meanwhile, Prof. Vali Nasr would naturally agree while also claiming the Bush administration and 20 years of American foreign policy reacted by “going after the Muslim world.”
Amanpour began her questioning with more of a statement, “I just want to rewind a little bit and ask Vali to pick up on something you just said, Steve, because it was the—I guess, the beginning of intense Islamophobia, which has lasted since then. ‘Screw the Taliban’ was maybe the least of the issues in America. People were, you know, attacking, throwing stones at anybody who even looked Muslim, whether they were or not, even though President Bush went to a mosque and said, this is not about all Muslim people. This is about terrorists.”
PBS/CNN host Christiane Amanpour says 9/11 was "the beginning of intense Islamophobia, which has lasted since the since then, “screw the Taliban” was maybe the least of the issues in America" and asking Prof. Vali Nasr, "Did you imagine that this kind of Islamophobia, which… pic.twitter.com/DLB9jBCfTo
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) September 12, 2026
She then wondered, “But, Vali talk—did you imagine that this kind of Islamophobia, which emerged from there, would be so visceral and last to this day?”
Nasr initially spent some considerable amount of time not answering the question but eventually got around to going even further than Amanpour. To him, Bush’s attempts to differentiate between ordinary Muslims and the terrorists weren't good enough:
And regardless of what the president said, very quickly from the circle around him, from Dick Cheney, from his wife, from many people close to the administration, this was not about a particular terrorist group, was actually about Islam itself. It was about Islamic radicalism. Something was wrong with the region. Something was wrong with the Arabs. And in fact, it became part of the language of the administration that not that they have to destroy a particular terrorist group, but they actually have to fix the Middle East, get radicalism out of the mind of the people.
Nasr also alleged, "Then for 20 years, the administration followed a Global War on Terror, the ideological anchor of which was essentially, you know, going after the Muslim world, going after its belief system, demanding of Muslims to be following a different kind of faith. And the administration never really tried to separate the religion from the radicalism. It said it sometimes, but everything it did suggested that it was not really observing any kind of distinction. So, the Americans basically took that on and reacted to it viscerally as well.
The media, Amanpour and Company, very much included, love to talk about the threat of “Christian Nationalism,” a vague term with no agreed upon definition. Some media people use it to describe people who are simply pro-life. Yet, when it comes to people who fly planes into buildings or those who support them, PBS gets quite offended when people start referring to them as radical Muslims.
Here is a transcript for the September 11 show:
PBS Amanpour and Company
9/11/2026
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: I just want to rewind a little bit and ask Vali to pick up on something you just said, Steve, because it was the—I guess, the beginning of intense Islamophobia, which has lasted since then. “Screw the Taliban” was maybe the least of the issues in America. People were, you know, attacking, throwing stones at anybody who even looked Muslim, whether they were or not, even though President Bush went to a mosque and said, this is not about all Muslim people. This is about terrorists. But, Vali talk—did you imagine that this kind of Islamophobia, which emerged from there, would be so visceral and last to this day?
VALI NASR: Well, at that point in time, we didn't know that it would lead to wars, as Steve said, and that it would last. But it was very clear that the scale of the attack and the fact that it was so disruptive immediately, all airports, all flights in the United States was cut off. It was very clear that this is not something that just happened in New York.
But actually, everybody around the country felt it. Everybody was basically—didn't know when the next attack would come. The message immediately from Washington was that they really didn't know if there were other terrorist cells or that was this just it. So, I think, you know, the shock basically continued after the initial attack.
And then it was very clear, because I actually lived in San Diego at the time, which was far removed from all of this, that a lot of Americans for the first time, far away from Washington and New York, were really, really absorbing this idea that we have a problem in the Middle East, that there are enemies there. And they not only mean us—mean the United States harm, but they actually have the capability to reach America.
And regardless of what the president said, very quickly from the circle around him, from Dick Cheney, from his wife, from many people close to the administration, this was not about a particular terrorist group, was actually about Islam itself. It was about Islamic radicalism. Something was wrong with the region. Something was wrong with the Arabs. And in fact, it became part of the language of the administration that not that they have to destroy a particular terrorist group, but they actually have to fix the Middle East, get radicalism out of the mind of the people.
And so, this—and then for 20 years, the administration followed a Global War on Terror, the ideological anchor of which was essentially, you know, going after the Muslim world, going after its belief system, demanding of Muslims to be following a different kind of faith. And the administration never really tried to separate the religion from the radicalism. It said it sometimes, but everything it did suggested that it was not really observing any kind of distinction. So, the Americans basically took that on and reacted to it viscerally as well.
