**8. Conclusions**

Overall, whether British officials regarded political Islam as a menacing phenomenon or not, it is evident that the FCO paid grea<sup>t</sup> attention to its emergence. Many of the studied documents repeatedly stress the need to focus on British interests and implications on foreign policy, but also on the need to adhere to the concepts of tolerance and understanding (Rynhold and Spyer 2007, p.138).<sup>51</sup> It is evident that although the FCO gradually adopted a securitization discourse—which was also consistent with state policies—it also preserved some autonomy upon its analytical approach (Rynhold and Spyer 2007,

<sup>47</sup> BNA, FCO 8/6504, NB 226/2, "The Political ... ", Ibid.

<sup>48</sup> BNA, FCO 8/6504, NB 226/2, "The Political ... ", Ibid.

<sup>49</sup> BNA, FCO 8/6504, NB 226/2, "The Political ... ", Ibid.

<sup>50</sup> BNA, FCO 93/2311, "Contemporary Islamic Revivalism: A Discussion Panel", 12/2/1980.

<sup>51</sup> BNA, FCO 8/6120, NF 226/3, "Research on Islam", Long to Bannerman, 5/12/1986.

p. 141). We do not argue that the dominant effect of Britain's 'global role' was absent at the FCO. However, the debates and controversies between British officials regarding the character and the role of political Islam were always vibrant.

British officials sometimes fell short when it came to transcending the traditional discourse of power influence and its connection to sectarian kinship regarding MENA (Mabon and Wastnidge 2019, p. 596). However, even though the British diplomatic authorities feared the influence of the 1979 Iranian revolution and the spread of political Islam and Shi'a mobilization, they did not read Islamist feelings in a bandwagon manner. Instead, they articulated their predictions and their perspectives by using historical, social, political, and economic tools that that enabled them to weigh the balance of power, even though at times—for example in the Kurdish and Shi'a uprising in Iraq in 1991—they failed to acknowledge the dynamics. Nevertheless, as our archival material reveals, sometimes, the FCO could not escape from the use of stereotypical approaches that failed to see the historical driving forces.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.
