Washington’s Bangladesh gamble could ignite a new Islamist surge in South Asia |
As Bangladesh approaches yet another defining political transition, the country has become the center of an unusual and consequential diplomatic experiment. Over the past year, Washington has intensified its engagement with Bangladesh’s Islamist parties, most prominently the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) and Islami Andolan Bangladesh (IAB). This shift in American diplomacy – subtle at first, now increasingly explicit – signals a strategic recalibration that could reshape South Asia’s political trajectory in unexpected ways.
The Biden and Trump administrations may disagree on many fronts, but when it comes to Bangladesh, both seem to have converged on a shared assumption: Islamists will hold a larger stake in the country’s future, and the United States must now engage them directly. But this outreach is occurring at a moment when Bangladesh is at its most politically fragile – and when Islamist revivalism is at its most assertive since the early 1990s.
The risk is simple: Washington may be betting on forces whose rise could deepen instability across the region, empower extremist networks, and undermine Bangladesh’s secular foundations — foundations that were laid with enormous sacrifice in 1971.
A sudden pivot in Washington’s Bangladesh policy
It began quietly. In Sylhet earlier this year, officials from the US embassy held a meeting with leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami’s regional branch – a group historically linked to the massacres and atrocities of 1971. That meeting was followed by a series of additional engagements: a US diplomat meeting a Jamaat leader at the American Club; former ambassadors visiting Jamaat’s headquarters; an embassy-invited Jamaat “delegation” discussing internal democracy and minority rights; and finally, a high-profile July visit by US chargé d’affaires Tracey Ann Jacobson to Jamaat’s central leadership.
The symbolism was unmistakable. Many Bangladeshis saw it as a quiet endorsement – a signal that Washington now considers Jamaat a legitimate stakeholder in the country’s........