“Rock the Casbah”, the only U.S. Top 10 hit by The Clash, was released on 1982 album Combat Rock. The last album to feature the original Clash lineup, Mick Jones departed after the album’s completion, and Topper Headon was fired due to heroin addiction. Critics targeted “Rock the Casbah” as too mainstream, but the band says the song, like all their others, was political. Inspired by a rock music ban in Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini, its lyrics describe the population defying the ban. They “rock the casbah”, and the government orders an attack on its own rock-loving people. The video for “Casbah” was directed by Don Letts and shot in Austin, Texas. Depicting an Arab and Hasidic Jew skanking in the streets and interspersing shots of the band playing in front of an oil well, it is an early MTV classic. The song later became an anthem for the U.S. military during Operation Desert Storm and was the first song played by Armed Forces Radio, ironic given The Clash’s long-standing leftist politics.

Byzantine Rock: A Brief History of the Clash’s “Rock the Casbah”, Minneapolis-St. Paul City Pages, December 15, 1999
The Clash Online
Revolution Rock, a UK fan site
The Clash on AllMusic.com
Rolling Stone piece on The Clash written by U2’s The Edge