US POLICY TOWARDS AFGHANISTAN

Author(s): Rais Ahmad Khan

Source: Pakistan Horizon , First Quarter 1987, Vol. 40, No. 1 (First Quarter 1987), pp. 65-
79
Published by: Pakistan Institute of International Affairs

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41403938

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 US POLICY TOWARDS AFGHANISTAN

Rais Ahmad Khan

Afghanistan, till the Iranian Revolution in February 1979, had ne

been a priority item in the US foreign policy agenda. Though the US
Afghanistan have co-existed as independent states for more than 200 year
their bilateral relations do not go beyond 1935 when the US extend
diplomatic recognition to Afghanistan. Another eight years were to el
before the US opened its mission in Kabul in 1943.

The Soviet Union's involvement in the Second World War and

subsequently in the cold war, coupled with the British withdrawal from
India, gave Afghanistan a freedom of action in foreign affairs that it had
never known before. It turned to the US, the greatest military-industrial
power in the post-war era, for aid and advice. However, the US priorities
then lay in Europe and the Far East. Itsstrategic interests in Afghanistan
were limited. And it did not share Afghan security concern vis-a-vis the
Soviet Union in the wake of the withdrawal of the British countervailing
power. All Afghanistan got was an Export-Import Bank credit of $21
million on commercial terms in 1949 and economic aid worth $348,740
under Point Four program in 1951. Military aid was flatly refused.

When cold war moved on to Asia in the early 1950's Afghanistan tried
again to secure military aid and substantial economic assistance from the
US. The US again refused to extend any military aid. It was afraid that
any such aid to Afghanistan might provoke the Soviet Union into taking
hostile action against that country and might also adversely affect the
growing US-Pakistan ties. Disappointed, Afghanistan in the fifties, under

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Prime Minister Mohammad Daoud, turned to the Soviet Union which
provided it with both economic and military aid.

To prevent Afghanistan from becoming a Soviet satellite the US then

decided to extend more economic and technical assistance to Kabul.

During the decade of 1955-65 the US gave $550 million in economic aid
to Afghanistan as compared to $700 million given by the Soviet Union
during the same period. This was a new version of the "Great game"
which Czarist Russia and British India played over Afghanistan in the
19th and early 20th centuries. The US aid helped Afghanistan to keep
its non-aligned status.

In the late sixties and during the seventies, as a result of the Vietnam
war and detente with both China and the Soviet Union, the US generally
withdrew from South Asia. It left the region to be managed by the Sino-
Soviet rivalry as long as neither of these powers tried to establish a posi-
tion of dominance. Consequently, the US economic aid to Afghanistan
tapered off. From 1965 to 1975, it amounted to only $150 million. When
Daoud, in July 1973, with the help of the Soviet trained army officers
staged a coup and ousted his cousin King Zahir Shah, the US showed no
great concern. Even Daoud's pronounced tilt toward the Soviet Union
(he was the only Asian leader to endorse Brezhnev's Asian Security Plan)
and patronage of pro-Moscow elements at home evoked no sharp American
criticism. The US kept its low profile in Afghanistan and continued the
modest economic aid programme.

On 27 April 1978, President Daoud was overthrown and killed in a

bloody uprising led by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan.
Analysts are not unanimous in their interpretation of this event. There
are those who point the accusing fìnger at the Soviet Union. They argue
that after the unsuccessful visit tc Moscow in June 1974, Daoud had started

moving away from the Soviet Union. To support this they point to the
October 1974 treaty with the Shah of Iran who promised $2 billion aid
for Afghanistan's seven year development plan; to Daoud's overtures to
China; efforts to improve relations with Pakistan; to his scheduled visit to
the USA in September 1978, and the purge of pro-Soviet elements in the

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 government and the armed forces. On the basis of these developments
they conclude that the Soviet Union conspired with or at least encouraged
the Parcham and Khalq factions of the Afghan Communist Party to unite
and oust Daoud. An interesting twist to this line of argument is given
by those analysts who wish to point the accusing fìnger at the US. They
charge that the US, through its surrogate, the Shah of Iran, was trying
to draw Daoud away from the Soviet Union into the Western camp and
thereby it provoked the Soviet reaction.

To present the Soviet Union or the United States as the villain or to

hold Daoud's foreign policy as the root cause of his downfall is not justi-
fied. The Shah of Iran wanted to play a larger than life role in the Indian
Ocean region. He was trying to accomplish with petro-dollars the grandiose
design of forming a Western oriented Tehran, centered regional economic
and security sphere comprising the Guif countries, Afghanistan, Pakistan
and India. How far the Shah had American blessings or backing is open
to speculation. In fact the Shah himself had accused the CIA of trying to cut
him to size and, in the process, unleashing forces that ultimately brought
his downfall.

Daoud's foreign policy was not such as to provoke the Soviet Union
into conspiring for his overthrow. In search of more economic aid and
other assistance he had signed the treaty with the Shah; had opened up
to Pakistan and China; had visited several Arab capitals and was planning
to visit the USA. But all the while he was very careful not to give any
complaint to the Soviet Union. He continued to receive economic and
military aid from the Soviet Union. In April 1977, Afghanistan and the
Soviet Union signed a 12 year agreement for extensive economic co-
operation including infra-structure projects linking the two countries.
The Soviet experts were drafting Afghanistan's seven year development
plan (1976-83). Despite Daoud's so called tilt to the West, the Soviet
Union had more influence in Afghanistan than any other country or
combination of countries. No Western economic activity or otherwise
was permitted in northern Afghanistan.

What caused Daoud's bloody fall was his very repressive policy at
home which had spared neither the Islamic fundamentalists nor the radical

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 leftists. The demonstration in Kabul on the assassination of Amir Khyber
was unprecedented. It was mass anger cutting across ideological affiliations.
This also accounts for the confusion in Washington about the nature of
the revolution and the ideological orientation of its leaders. The State
Department, in a message to American embassies all over the world on
28 April stated: "Fragmentary evidence suggests that they (leaders of
the coup) may be leftists and/or strongly Islamic nationalists."1

Two foremost American experts on Afghanistan - Louis Dupree

and Richard Frye - argued with the State Department that the coup was
more nationalist than communist. Cyrus Vance, the then Secretary of
State, has admitted that the US had no evidence of Soviet complicity in
the coup. 2

The State Department, consequently, brushed aside Iranian and

Pakistani apprehensions regarding the Soviet origin or at least inspiration
of the coup. A number of American foreign policy analysts like Selig
Harrison, Alvin Rubinstein, Francis Fakuyama, Thomas Hammond et. al.
mainly relying on circumstantial evidence, thought that the Soviet Union
might not have planned or stage managed the coup but it certainly
knew about it and did encourage it. They couid not, however, convince
their government. The US adopted a passive policy of wait and see.
Diplomatic relations with Kabul were maintained and the modest
economic aid programme ($20.6 million for 1978) was continued. This
policy was understandable as the coup did not bring about any qualitative
change in the central strategic balance.

As the revolution in Afghanistan unfolded itself, the US policy makers

became convinced that Kabul's new rulers were not nationalist but were
communist. In December 1 978* Afghanistan and the Soviet Union signed
a treaty of friendship and cooperation for 20 years. Kabul generally sided
with the Soviet Union on international issues of concern to the US. But
the US still did not take an alarmist view of the situation in Afghanistan

I. Thomas Hammond, Red Flag over Afghanistan : The Communist Coup , the Soviet
Invasion and the Consequences (Boulder, Westview, 1984), p. 60.
2. Cyrus Vance, Hard Choices: Critical Years of American Foreign Policy (N.Y.: Simon
& Schuster, 1983), p. 384.

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and was tolerant of the very close Soviet-Afghan relations. It refused
to extend any aid to Afghan resistance which had been active since
summer 1978.

However, the fall of the Shah of Iran in January/February 1979 changed

entirely the geo-strategic picture in the region. US was now forced to
re-assess the significance of the Saur Révolution and of the close and
growing ties between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan. By August 1979,
all aid to Afghanistan was stopped. Peace Corps Volunteers were
withdrawn, no new ambassador was appointed and covert assistance to
Afghan resistance in the form of medicines, communication equipment
and technical advice on acquisition of weapons extended. Deeply
involved in the hostage crisis, the US policy makers felt un-easy about
Soviet intentions in Afghanistan. In late November 1979, when Soviet
build up on Afghan borders was noticed, the US informed its allies and
privately warned the Soviet Union that any intervention in Afghanistan
would be viewed as a very grave matter.3 Obviously the American
warnings were not taken seriously by the Soviets. And the Soviet military
intervention, when it did take place on 24 December,* was no surprise
to the United States.

The physical dimensions of the Soviet military intervention in

Afghanistan and of the US response to it are fairly well known and it is
needless to catalogue them here. However, two questions are required
to be addressed. One, why did the Soviet Union intervene and two,
what are the objectives of the US policy in Afghanistan. Their questions
and answers are somewhat inter-related.

Why did the Soviet Union Intervene in Afghanistan?

Soviet political culture make it very difficult to scrutinise the minds

of the leaders in the Kremlin and to determine the directions of their

3
♦
d
h

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policies with any certainty. The decision to intervene in Afghanistan,
as the Soviet leaders have admitted, was a difficult one. Various inter-

pretations are possible and plausible.

One is the "Bear On The Move" thesis. According to this, Russia has
always been an aggressive and expansionist power. Its intervention in
Afghanistan is a very significant and alarming step in the historic and
traditional quest for Gulf oil and warm waters of the Indian Ocean. It
is for the first time that Soviet military power has been deployed outside
its national boundaries and its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.
Afghanistan is represented as a stepping stone towards the Soviet domina-
tion of the region, even towards world hegemony. This is also regarded as
extension of the Brezhnev Doctrine beyond Eastern Europe. It means that
once a state has declared itself socialist, it must remain as socialist. Any
attempt, even by its own people, to change its character can justify
Soviet intervention.

Other analysts discount any broader or long term objectives of the

Soviet move. World hegemony, they point out, is not a feasible proposition
for either of the superpowers who are finding it difficult even to manage
their own backyards. The quest for warm waters, they say, is an obsolete
concept. They reject the 'denial of oil' scenario as they think that its
political fall-out in the Middle East and Western Europe would be too
costly for the Kremlin leaders to undertake such a venture. And if the
Soviets ever run short of oil, why cannot they buy it like other consumer
nations, they ask. These analysts consider the Soviet move as purely
defensive, caused by consideration of security and prestige. The Soviet
Union has always been paranoid about its national security. It had
considered a number of US moves as endangering its security. For
example, the establishment of diplomatic relations between the US and
China in December 1978 and China's quest of military hardware from the
West; the non-ratification of SALT-II by the American Senate; the autho-
rization of MX missiles; the deployment of Pershing and Cruise missiles
in Europe (December 1979) and the huge American naval build up in
and around the Gulf, could not but alarm the Soviet leadership.

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 The success of an "Islamic fundamentalist" revolution in Afghanistan,
after a similar revolution in Iran, was unpalatable to the Soviet
Union because of its possible impact on the Soviet Central Asian Republics,
and also on the overall security of the Soviet Union. Under these circum-
stances the establishment of a quasi-communist strongly pro-Soviet govern-
ment, in Kabul was a very welcome dèvelopment. One may condemn
it as tactical opportunism on the part of the Soviet Union but, once such
a government was established in Kabul, it became a matter of both prestige
and national interest to prevent its fall at the hands of Islamic fundamen-
talists. Hafizullah Amin's ruthlessness and reform measures that violated
the traditional values of the Afghan people created widespread agitation,
particularly in the countryside. Soviet Union realised that if Amin continued
it would cause the communists permanent political damage and might
lead to a Islamic fundamentalist regime. From such a regime the Soviet
Union could not expect even the "Soviet tilted neutralism" of the pre-
Daoud era. It, therefore, decided to move in. Perhaps the Soviet Union
expected a cheap victory. It did not foresee the strong reaction from the
US, the stiff resistance by the Afghans themselves, and severe condemna-
tion from the Third World. Soviet inaction to come to the assistance
of Vietnam, with whom it has a treaty of friendship and cooperation,
when the Vietnamese forces in Kampuchea came under attack from the
Chinese also partially explains Soviet action in Afghanistan when the
Kabul government came under attack from the Afghan resistance.

Washington had no clarity of perception of Soviet objectives in Afghan-

istan. Cyrus Vance, Secretary of State under Carter, admitted that "Soviets
precise motives in attacking Afghanistan may remain unclear."4 Both
the Carter and the Reagan administrations subscribed to the "Bear On
The Move" thesis. President Carter described the Soviet intervention
as "a stepping stone to possible control over much of world's oil supplies"
and warned against possible Russian designs on Iran, Pakistan and the
Gulf.5 Moreover he looked upon the Soviet intervention as an assault
not only on Afghanistan but also on the fundamental principles of inter-
national order and decency and a threat to world peace.

4. US Department of State, Bulletin , March 1980, p. 35.

5. Newsweek , 14 January 1980, p. 6.

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 President Reagan, even more than Carter, believes in the aggressive
and expansionist nature of the Soviet state. He calls it "the evil empire."
The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was preceded by several Soviet
geopolitical moves in the late 19704 which Washington regarded as a
gross violation of the ground rules of detente. Then came the revolution in
Iran resulting in the collapse of the American Twin Pillar Policy* in South-
West Asia. It is not surprising therefore that both Carter and Reagan
put the worst possible interpretation on the Soviet intervention in
Afghanistan.6 No country can be absolutely certain about the intentions
of its adversaries and, therefore, decision-makers take the capability of
the enemy as the determining factor in formulating policy.

It cannot be denied that the presence of a number of (arge Soviet

forces in Afghanistan has brought about a qualitative change in the status
of that country and has adversely altered the political, geostrategic and
psychological environment for the US and its allies, and for the tradi-
tionally pro-West governments of the region. It has put large portions
of the Gulf and the Indian Ocean directly in the range of Soviet tactical
air power (if the airfields in Afghanistan are upgraded) and, on the
ground, both Iran and Pakistan have been outflanked.

US Afghan Policy

Afghanistan had started attracting the serious attention of American

policy planners since the Iranian revolution but the Soviet intervention
made it an absolutely top priority item on their agenda.

The thrust of President Carter's Afghan policy was to punish the

Soviet Union for its Afghan adventure and to prevent further Soviet expan-
sionism in the region. To implement these objectives he announced a
series of political and economic sanctions against the Soviet Union and
issued a stern warning in the form of what has now come to be called the
Carter Doctrine. The sanctions failed to achieve the desired results and
have since been withdrawn. The Carter Doctrine has not been put to
test as yet as the Soviet Union has made no attempt to move beyond

6. Wall Street Journal , 19 April 1985.

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 Afghanistan. Anyway, whether Pakistan falls within the ambit of the
Carter Doctrine is not clear.

The centre piece of President Reagan's Afghan policy is the aid to

Afghan resistance. As stated earlier the Afghan resistance did not attract
American attention till the Iranian revolution. Even then only non-military
aid comprising medicines and communication equipments were covertly
provided. The total aid package under President Carter came to about
$30 million. However, the Soviet military intervention completely changed
the American perspective and according to reports the supply of arms
began from January 1980.

The aid to Afghan resistance really picked up efter October 1984

when both the House and the Senate unanimously passed a resolution
that:

It should be the policy of the United States. ...to provide the people
of Afghanistan, if they requested so, with material assistance, as the
US considers appropriate, to help them fight effectively for their
freedom.7

American aid to Afghan resistance has gradually escalated. It is

reported to be around $75 million in 1984; $280 million in 1985 and $500
million in 1986. 8

Objectives of the US Afghan Policy

This brings us to the second question viz. what are the objectives
of the US policy in Afghanistan. A survey of available literature, official
as well as non-official, and American as well as non-American, brings out
the following theses on US objectives:

(Official American thesis) Soviet withdrawal through political settlement:

According to the official American version the US objective in Afghanistan

7. Richard P. Cronin, Afghanistan After Five Years : State of the Conflict. The Afghan
Resistance & The US Role , Report No. 85-20 F, Congressional Research Service. The
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., January 1985, p. 7.
, 8. Cronin, op. c/t., p. 7, The Washington Post, 13 January 1985; International Herald
Tribune , 18 January 1986, p. 6.

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is to secure the total withdrawal of the Soviet forces in Afghanistan and
to return that country to its independent, sovereign and non-aligned
status, restoring in the process the Afghan right of self-determination.
Washington is ambivalent on the question whether a military solution
of the Afghan problem is possible. However, it maintains that aid to the
Afghan resistance is a necessary instrument to make the Soviets amenable
to a political settlement as it raises the cost of occupation for the Soviet
Union. It is pointed out that the US has always advocated a political
settlement, has supported the Geneva process and has agreed to be part
of international guarantees of non-intervention in Afghanistan incase
of the Soviet withdrawal. As evidence of the reasonableness of the US

policy it is stated that, in case of Soviet withdrawal, Soviet Union's legiti-

mate security concerns and other interests in Afghanistan will be fully
protected.

The official American pronouncements on US objectives in Afghanistan

have been skeptically received by a number of foreign policy academics
and analysts. They maintain that the real objective of US policy is not to
get the Soviets out of Afghanistan, as soon as possible, but to keep them
in for as long as feasible. There are several versions or variations of this
thesis.

Moscow's Vietnam: Many analysts suggest that the US objective is

to turn Afghanistan into a Soviet Vietnam; to bleed the Soviet Union
by raising the cost of occupation as high as possible and to contain it by
draining its resources and destroying its domestic support as well as inter-
national prestige.9

ASide Show: Another variation of the thesis is that Afghanistan is a

side show, the real issue being the central strategic balance between the
US and USSR. The vital American interests, according to this view, lie

9. E.g. see Sajjad Hyder, "Settling the Afghan War. A Pakistani Perspective"
Paper presented at the Seminar on "The Soviet Presence in Afghanistan and Its Impact
on South Asia" held by the Institute of International Studies, University of South Carolina,
8-9 February 1985; Selig Harrison, "A Breakthrough In Afghanistan", Foreign Policy ,
No. 51 (Summer 1983); Kuldip Nayar, Report on Afghanistan (New Delhi; Allied Publishers»
1981).

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not in Afghanistan but elsewhere. Washington does not expect the
Afghan resistance to succeed. In fact it has written off Afghanistan. But
the fighting in Afghanistan must be continued to prevent the Soviet Union
from adventures in areas vital for the US.1®

A bargaining chip: Yet another variation is the trade off thesis. It

implies that aid to Afghan resistance gives the US the leverage to bargain
with the Soviet Union. Afghanistan can help the US to arrive at a favourable
global understanding in which US restraint in Afghanistan is traded for
Soviet restraint in Central America.11

The reason of there being so much skepticism about the officially

declared objectives of the US policy in Afghanistan is that the American
establishment, academics, and the media themselves, are divided over
US goals in Afghanistan. The theses enumerated above have all been
advocated by one group or the other both within the establishment and
outside.

The arguments that were advanced in the beginning to advocate

American support to Afghan resistance were strongly supportive of the
"sideshow" and "trade off" theses. It was said that such support "would
have the desirable effect of diverting Soviet resources and attention away
from areas of greater inherent interest to the United States and the
West."12

An editorial in New York Times noted that "The Reagan administration

needs to decide how much help to provide to the insurgents. ..(and) what
terms to set for an end to such support."1* That this line of thought has
not entirely been given up is evident from the remarks of some State
Department officials, reported by Selig Harrison, that they would fight
to the last Afghan.

10. Jagat Mehta, "Afghanistan, A Neutral Solution", Foreign Policy , No. 47, (Sum mer
1982); Francis Fakuyama, "The Security of Pakistan, A Trip Report", Sante Monica, The
Rand Corporation, September 1980. Also Fakuyama, "The Future of the Soviet Role in
Afghanistan. A Trip Report", ibid., September 1984.
1 1. Selig Harrison, "The Afghan Arms Alliance", South (London), March 1985.
12. Fakuyama, op. cit., September 1980, p. 32.
13. New York Times, '0 February 1981.

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 The present stalemate in Afghanistan serves the US interests in the
short run. The Soviet Union is militarily bogged down, economically strain-
ed and diplomatically isolated. Afghanistan hinders the Soviet efforts to
normalise relations with China and a large part of the Muslim world.
The Soviet invasion has also proved a face saving device for the US. Pre-
viously the US was considered to be opposed to national liberation move-
ments; support for the Afghan resistance enables the US to claim to be the
champion of such movements and to dub the Soviet Union as an oppressor
and colonizer. The Soviet Union's continued presence in Afghanistan
provides the US the justification for its massive arms build up on one
hand and, on the other, gives it a useful propaganda tool to embarrass
the Soviet Union in various international forums. These are advantages
not to be easily given up.

But from the beginning the US was also conscious of the serious long
term consequences of the permanent loss of Afghanistan to the Soviet
bloc. The longer the Soviets stay in Afghanistan, the greater are the
chances of Sovietization of Afghanistan. Therefore, to prevent Soviet
consolidation and to make occupation as costly as possible are simply
the short run goals of US policy in Afghanistan. These practical and achiev-
able tactical goals cannot be said to have completely over-shadowed the
long term 'difficult to achieve* strategic goal of total Soviet withdrawal
from Afghanistan on US terms.

When, on 22 February 1980, Brezhnev announced the willingness of

the Soviet Union to withdraw its forces, provided foreign intervention
in Afghanistan ceased, President Jimmy Carter immediately wrote a letter,
assuring the Soviet leader that the neutrality of Afghanistan and non-
intervention by any foreign power would be ensured. Similarly President
Carter fully supported the British initiative for a political settlement.
President Ronald Reagan, despite his strong rhetoric and enthusiasm for
the Afghan resistance, supports the Geneva process.

The US and the Geneva Process

The stalemate in Afghanistan is damaging, even dangerous, for the

long term interests of the parties involved. For the Afghan people, it

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is death and destruction or exodus. For Pakistan, it is the proverbial
Sword of Democles hanging over its head. For the Soviet Union, it is the
bleeding wound. For the US, there is the unpalatable prospect of loosing
Afghanistan permanently to the Soviet Union and thereby adversely
effecting its strategic superiority in the region. Yet a political settlement
remains elusive.

Let me briefly recapitulate the progress of the Geneva process.

During 1981-82, through the efforts of the UN Secretary General, the
groundwork for negotiations was laid. The parties concerned agreed to
discuss the following four principles:

I . Withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.

2. Non-interference in the internal affairs of states.

3. International guarantees of non-interference.

4. Voluntary return of the refugees to their homes.

It may be noted that the UN initiative circumvents the issue of the

status and nature of the government in Kabul before and after the with-
drawal of Soviet forces. It is silent on the question of national self-deter-
mination for the Afghans.

The proximity talks began in April 1982. Geneva I was exploratory

but as a result of Geneva II, in April 1983, a 23-page draft agreement was
circulated for consideration by the parties who were to meet again ih
June. Diego Cordovez claimed that 95 per cent of the agreement was
in hand.14 It was expected that Geneva III would produce a preliminary
accord and the negotiations would then be directed to the implementation
phase. Instead, Geneva III failed because George Shultz, US Secretary of
State, told Sahabzada Yaqub, on 25 May 1983, that the United States gov-
ernment considered the proposed agreement unworkable in the absence
of some provision for the replacement of the Karmal regime in Kabul by
a more representative government.^ |n other words the US, who was

14. Lawrence L/fschultz "An Accord in the Offing", Far Eastern Economic Review
(Hong Kong), 9 June 1983, p. 28.
15. Selig Harrison, Testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Hearings :
Thé Soviet Role in Asia; 2 8 June 1983, p. 278.

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to be one of the guarantors of the agreement, saw no compulsion or benefit
in endorsing a document that did not fully meet its objectives and interests
in Afghanistan. It seems the Reagan administration was not yet willing to
let the Soviet Union off the hook. It is also significant that two weeks
before, the US administration, for the first time, leaked information about

arms supplies to the Afghan resistance through the Pakistan conduit. This
must have greatly embarrassed Islamabad which had constantly denied
such involvement.

Despite this set back, Diego Cordovez continued his shuttle diplomacy
and, as a result of Geneva IV and V, four documents have been agreed upon.
These deal with: mutual non-interference; return of refugees; International
guarantees, and inter-relationships. The only hitch in reaching the final
accord was the delay by the Soviet Union in announcing a time-table
for the withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan. If the parties have
reached an agreement on all other aspects, as it has been reported, then
a compromise on the time-table for Soviet withdrawal should not be
difficult to work out.

However, the issue of Afghan national self-determination may once

again become an obstacle in the way of the successful conclusion of the
negotiations. The US reluctance to be a guarantor of the continuation
of a purely communist government in Kabul is understandable. But at
the same time it is too much to expect from the Soviet Union - a super-
power - that it would immediately and completely disassociate itself
from the Saur revolution and abandon the communist government it
had come to protect. The Soviet Union would perhaps never accept
a situation where Islamic fundamentalists rule at Kabul. But enough
indications are available that the Soviets might not insist on a purely
communist party government at Kabul. The Soviets in fact have never
called the Kabul government as communist or socialist. They use the
phrase "national democratic" to define it, thus leaving the door wide open
for necessary adjustments when the time comes. They have already
ditched Babrak Karmal, and a non-communist is now the President of
the Republic. During his recent visit to Delhi. Gorbachev clearly stated
that the Soviet Union wanted Afghanistan to be neutral and non-aligned.

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The declaration seen in the context of his very conciliatory tone toward
Pakistan is highly significant. These Soviet signals must be seriously
assessed and probed and responded to. Here a special responsibility rests
with the Afghan resistance. Let them be satisfied, for the time being,
with the laurel of having achieved the Soviet withdrawal. The rest they
should leave to the dynamics of the Afghan society itself. The situation
as it has developed calls for understanding, flexibility and statesmanship.
Afghanistan cannot be another Vietnam. Soviet Union is not 10,000 miles
away; it is situated next door. Afghan resistance is not a monolithic force
like the Vietcong. And, because of the political culture ofthe Soviet Union,
the military/political bureaucracy there is not likely to face domestic
revulsion and revolt that the Washington establishment had to face and
succumb to.

In June last when the spokesman of the islamic Alliance for the first
time met with President Reagan he was told, "your goal is our goal."
But can Reagan deliver on this pledge. To support the maximum goals
of the Afghan resistance he wou ld have to escalate the conflict to the nodal

point. Would a Democratic controlled Congress and an alienated public

opinion over Iran gate permit him to do so? Let the leaders ofthe Afghan
resistance ponder over the questions. Even if Reagan is able to get his
W*y, what consequences would it have for this security of Pakistan and
the fate of the Afghan people?

79

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