WASHINGTON, June 17: At a time when Islam and Muslims feel beleaguered both here and elsewhere in the world, some Islamic governments have entered into an unusual alliance with the Christian right to oppose a cause espoused by liberal opinion.

Conservative US Christian organizations and states like Sudan, Iran, Libya and Iraq are reported to be working with US Christian organizations to halt the expansion of sexual and political protections and rights for women and children and gays. They have also joined forces to oppose abortion rights at the UN conferences.

Reporting this on Monday, The Washington Post says in a report that the coming together of some Islamic states and Christian organizations has placed the Bush administration in the “awkward position of siding with some of its most reviled adversaries, including Iraq and Iran, in a cultural skirmish against its closest European allies, which broadly support expanding sexual and political rights”.

The paper says that, according to the UN diplomats, the US and Iranian officials even “huddled during coffee breaks at the UN summit on children in New York last month”. The US-led coalition blocked an effort at the summit to include a reference in the final declaration to “reproductive health-care services”.

“The main issue that brings us all together is defending family values, the natural family,” Mukhtar Lamani, a Moroccan diplomat who represents the 53-nation Organization for Islamic Conference at the UN, told the Post. “The Republican administration is so clear in defending the family values.”

Some Western countries and liberal activists say they are alarmed by the influence of the Christian right at the UN, where more liberal women’s rights organizations have held sway for the past decade.

“They are trying to undo some of the landmark agreements that were reached in the 1990s, particularly on women’s rights and family planning,” one European diplomat said. “The US decision to come into the game on their side has completely changed the dynamics.” The Bush administration has been steadily steering American society to the right and to Christian fundamentalism, through legislation and appointments to public offices.