The growing contrast and contradiction between the processes of radicalization and democratization in the age of global market reforms and the ‘War on Terror’ are not confined to the internal or domestic Moroccan political scene. Political movements, NGOs, the government, international institutions and foreign governments are all embedded within a growing number of international networks thus making policy a global enterprise. In the following article we want to examine the impact of US policy on the Moroccan reform process. The background for this analysis is George W. Bush’s Greater Middle Eastern Initiative. This US initiative is ambitious as it tries to devise policies that tackle what is seen as the root causes for Middle East instability, violence and/or Islamism. Morocco is seen as one of the US’s strategic allies in the region and has been solicited to join the ‘War on Terror’. Morocco is an interesting case to study simultaneously the impact of the ‘War on Terror’, the implementation of a Free Trade Agreement and good governance measures as political tools to counter terrorism through fighting poverty and, finally, the ‘Islamist question’ particularly present in Morocco.