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I don't think it's as much about ideological threat as it is about this ideology officially proclaiming the goal of violently overthrowing existing state (while nobody likely thought US communists are going to enact the revolution right now, that's still the official goal of any communist party in a non-communist state) and being supported by a major world power having both nukes and (reasonably) fat budgets to spend on disrupting things in enemy regimes. Once that power disappeared, the danger from the ideology alone is much less significant. Imagine Iran having nukes and actively and openly fomenting militant Islam movements in every country they can get into, and spending significant money on it, and actually getting high-level people in US government working for them. I think somebody in the US Government would consider that a reason to take notice, if only for the simple reason that you can't be the government if somebody else overthrows you.
You mean like Saudi Arabia did? I don't remember anyone being too bothered, although a fringe lefty comedian called Michael Moore made a documentary movie about it.
Saudi Arabia never had nukes, as far as I know, and unless I missed something, does not proclaim it's ideology to overthrow all non-Islamic government. I am also not aware of any high-level people caught on being Saudi spies - could you name a couple examples?
I think calling anything Moore makes "documentary" is stretching the term a little too thin, but it's not my kind of comedy anyway - I'd rather watch somebody like Chapelle or Louis CK, but to each their own.
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