They call themselves Infidels MC, a biker gang turned militia — bodies for hire and insignia for sale. That Infidels MC was born as Iraq burned should not surprise us. But the case of Infidels MC shows it was always a prologue, the next chapter in a “clash of civilizations” festering for decades. Doomsday theology and perpetual warSuch a throughline, from Gaza mercenaries to FBI manuals, is not conjured overnight. Infidels MC makes visible what Washington once tried (poorly) to obscure: that an Islamophobic pulse underwrites and anchors the American empire.