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Deep Roots: Understanding Afghanistan and Her Centuries of War – Part II

The United States, like many other Western nations, has a history accented with great achievements that broke down barriers to the future. These same histories are also bloated with an array of catastrophic failures that are lessons for the ages.

For centuries, foreign policy has been the cornerstone to America’s prominence on the world stage. What once was a predominantly isolationist precedent has now transformed into an overly hawkish tendency. Whether it be through direct involvement with the enemy or power contests conducted through proxy states, the U.S. has made itself both friend and foe to the nations of the world. While just a minute part of its history, one particular nation has tugged at not only the U.S.’ coffers, but also its news channels’ chyrons and citizens’ attention.

After over 100 years of war, including civil wars and the Anglo-Afghan Wars we talked about last time, Afghanistan was finally ready to build back. With a new leader, Zahir Shah, taking hold in 1933 and a continuing friendship with the Bolshevik regime in Russia, the region would be able to hold steady for almost the next half century, including sweeping economic reform and official recognition as a state by the U.S. As Afghanistan continued to develop and modernize, other leaders, such as Shah’s cousin and newly-elected Prime Minister Mohammed Daoud Khan, instituted social reforms as well, including allowing women more rights such as the ability to work and attend college. As part of the country’s new growth and reform, Khan looked to the country’s communist ally, Soviet Russia, to aid in economic and military development. Nikita Khrushchev, then Soviet premier, agreed to help, further bolstering the two countries’ relationship.

Playing into the long-held desires of Russia to inseminate the region with communist influence, Afghanistan allowing such significant economic and military aid allowed Russia to do just that. With murmurings of and growing communist sentiments beginning to spread throughout the nation, the underground Afghanistan Communist Party, or People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan — also known as the PDPA — officially formed under the leadership of Babrak Karmal and Nur Mohammed Taraki in 1965.

Babrak Karmal and Nur Mohammed Taraki would come to be two very substantial characters in the development of a communist Afghanistan. As a student at Kabul University, Karmal was introduced to Marxist ideology and began undertaking the organization of pro-communist political activities. After a five-year stint in prison for his Marxist demonstrations, serving in the Afghan army and completing his law degree, he served in the National Assembly, Afghanistan’s main legislative body (that recently collapsed on August 21, 2021 with the fall of Kabul), from 1965 to 1973.

Karmal’s friend and close associate, Taraki, however, was not as involved in Afghanistan’s political world. His only political experience was an appointment to act as an attaché in the Afghan embassy in the District of Columbia in 1953. It wasn’t until Shah implemented a new domestic and foreign policy in 1963 that Taraki entered politics.

The new policy tried to radically transform the country to a more Western style of government and view of human rights. Shah drew a new constitution for the country, offering freedom of speech, expression and assembly — rights he declared would no longer be restricted by the royal family. The constitution also set up democratic elections for the National Assembly. Over a 10-year period from 1963 to 1973, dubbed “the decade of democracy,” Afghanistan took quite kindly to both political and cultural revolution. Women were not required to wear burqas and could be found wearing Western-style dress. They were able to gather and organize publicly, and all Afghans could be found idolizing their favorite movie actors and actresses in a similar fashion as U.S. citizens.

Not everybody was enthralled by this change, though. The radical policy implemented by Shah created much distension in the PDPA, which split in 1967 into two factions: People’s (or Khalq) and Banner (Parcham). Led by the party’s deputy secretary, Karmal, the Banner faction supported the older, pro-Soviet relationships inspired by Khan to gradually turn Afghanistan to socialism. However, the People’s faction led by the party’s general secretary, Taraki, was a large supporter of the idea of mass organization and class struggle to overthrow the new, democratic government.

Austin Knuppe, a political science professor at Utah State and expert on the post-Cold War politics of the region said, “It’s a country that’s had an underdeveloped economy, lots of local political violence between warring factions, tribes [and] criminal elements.”

He added that, historically, Afghanistan “has had monarchies and actually has [been] somewhat of a centralized state. It’s not always been what we refer to as a fragile, or failing, state, but it lacks a certain internal cohesion. So, you may have a government that’s representing the capital of Kabul, but they don’t maintain or are unable to govern the entire country.”

The tension created by the antagonistic views not only split the PDPA but the country, too. In 1973, frustrated by the new Western system that was harming Soviet relations, Khan succeeded with a peaceful coup and overthrew his cousin, Shah, and the rest of the monarchy, ending the “decade of democracy.” Khan, now the country’s first president, wasn’t able to keep his favor with the communist Banner faction for long, though, as he too tried to modernize the state and offer women rights. The two PDPA factions, Soviet pressure not withheld, rejoined in 1977. With the help of the Soviets in 1978, Taraki expelled Khan from power and became president and prime minister of Afghanistan with Karmal serving as his deputy prime minister. This second coup, known as the Sauer Revolution, resulted in Khan’s death and ended the monarchical rule of Afghanistan, beginning a new era of presidents and prime ministers, Taraki being the first.

Wanting to continue their allyship with — yet act independently of — the Soviet Union, the new government declared independence from the USSR but maintained another friendship treaty with the communist nation. Taraki and Karmal wanted to rule the country with Islamic foundations and socioeconomic justice in mind. But even with a new, independent government, the country was fracturing yet again. Taraki begat a rivalry with his political opponent. The Deputy Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin, the organizer of the Sauer Revolution that killed Khan in 1978, and Islamic traditionalists, who had for a long time been opponents of Khan’s social reform, began an armed revolution in rural Afghanistan. Sprouting from this revolt was the Mujahideen, a guerrilla movement tasked with defeating the communist government.

To make matters worse, American ambassador Adolph Dubs was killed after his kidnapping in 1979, resulting in the U.S. cutting off aid to the country. Tensions between Taraki and Amin worsened and Taraki was killed by Amin’s supporters. Just a few months later, in an attempt to stabilize the region again, the USSR invaded Afghanistan and executed Amin just a few days later. Karmal ascended to the seat of prime minister, but widespread opposition to the communist leader and the USSR invasion set off another series of revolts and the Mujahideen strengthened their position against the leftist government.

By 1982, more than 3.5 million Afghans had fled the country to neighboring Pakistan and Iran. In a gridlock of sorts, the Mujahideen and other Afghan revolutionaries maintained control of the countryside while the Soviet troops maintained superiority over the cities including the capitol, Kabul. By this point, the United States had gotten involved by means of arming the Mujahideen through Operation Cyclone, part of a larger effort to prevent the USSR from spreading its influence into Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

As a result of the continuing war and occupation of Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden and a group of his followers formed Al Qaeda — meaning “the base” — in the fall of 1988 in an attempt to bolster their efforts against the occupying USSR. Bin Laden called their fight a “jihad,” meaning a holy war, in response to the Soviets trying to rule in a way antithetical to a government led by pure Islamic principles. Bin Laden blamed the Soviet invasion and resultant American involvement for the country’s instability, calling America the one obstacle to the establishment of an Islamic state.

“It’s a country that is mountainous, is a really rough intimidating geography, [and] a difficult place to govern, even if you had a functioning legitimate government, a functioning economy and an effective military,” Knuppe said, speaking on the development of insurgent groups such as Al Qaeda and the Taliban. “With those things lacking, then it provides an opportunity for militant groups and to operate within those bounds.”

With the Soviet Union disintegrating in 1989, it couldn’t afford to continue its involvement with its southern neighbor. Having signed a peace accord in Geneva with the U.S., Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Soviet army withdrew 100,000 troops from Afghanistan, leaving their appointed puppet president Mohammed Najibullah and the Afghan army to take on the American-funded revolution led by Sibhatullah Mojadidi alone.

In an effort to take control of the unstable situation, the Mujahideen took over Kabul and threw Najibullah out under the direction of Ahmad Shah Masood. But the Mujahideen was beginning to see issues within its own quarters. Despite creating a new Islamic state led by Burhannudin Rabbani, regional leaders disagreed over how to lead a new Afghanistan. Vying for control of the country and taking advantage of the disunity, the Taliban ascended to power in 1995. Swearing they would be able to achieve a long-desired peace in the region and return the country to Islamic ways, a tired and fraught Afghan populace happily let the Taliban assume control of the country and its government for the next five years.

 

-Michael.Popa@usu.edu