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Moscow's man in Kabul was prime minister Nur Mohammed Taraki (1913-79), who was murdered and replaced by his deputy Hafizullah Aminin (1929-79) of the Khalq faction in September 1979. Although Amin called himself a loyal Communist, and begged for more Soviet military intervention, Moscow thought Amin was planning to double-cross them and switch over to China and the US. They therefore double crossed him first. Moscow had Amin officially invite the Soviet Army to enter Afghanistan; it did so in December 1979, and immediately executed Amin and installed a Soviet puppet [[Babrak Karmal]] (1929-96), the leader of the more moderate Parcham faction pf the PDPA. Pressure for intervention seems to have come primarily from the KGB (secret police), whose efforts to assassinate Amin had failed, and from the Soviet Army, which perhaps was worried about the danger of a mutiny on the part of its many Muslim soldiers.
Moscow's man in Kabul was prime minister Nur Mohammed Taraki (1913-79), who was murdered and replaced by his deputy Hafizullah Aminin (1929-79) of the Khalq faction in September 1979. Although Amin called himself a loyal Communist, and begged for more Soviet military intervention, Moscow thought Amin was planning to double-cross them and switch over to China and the US. They therefore double crossed him first. Moscow had Amin officially invite the Soviet Army to enter Afghanistan; it did so in December 1979, and immediately executed Amin and installed a Soviet puppet [[Babrak Karmal]] (1929-96), the leader of the more moderate Parcham faction pf the PDPA. Pressure for intervention seems to have come primarily from the KGB (secret police), whose efforts to assassinate Amin had failed, and from the Soviet Army, which perhaps was worried about the danger of a mutiny on the part of its many Muslim soldiers.
==World reaction==
==World reaction==
In July, 1979, before the Soviet invasion, President [[Jimmy Carter]] for the first time authorized the [[CIA]] to start assisting the Mujahideen rebels with money and non-military supplies sent via Pakistan. As soon as the Soviets invaded in December, 1979, Carter, disgusted at the collapse of détente and alarmed at the rapid Soviet gains, terminated progress on arms limitations, slapped a grain embargo on Russia, withdrew from the [[1980 Moscow Olympics]], and (with near-unanimous support in Congress) sent the [[CIA]] in to arm, train and finance the Mujahideen rebels. The US had strong support from Britain, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, all of whom feared the Soviet invasion was the first step in a grand move south toward the oil-rich [[Persian Gulf]]. Carter enlarged his position into the "Carter Doctrine," by which the US announced its intention to defend the Gulf. Historians now believe that analysis was faulty and that the Soviets were not planning a grand move, but were concerned with loss of prestige and the possibility of a hostile Muslim regime that might destabilize its largely Muslim southern republics.<ref>David N. Gibbs, "Reassessing Soviet Motives for Invading Afghanistan: a Declassified History." ''Critical Asian Studies'' 2006 38(2): 239-263. </ref> The boycott of the [[Olympics]] humiliated the Soviets, who had hoped the games would validate their claim to moral equality in the world of nations; instead they were pariahs again.
From 1950 to 1979, U.S. foreign assistance provided Afghanistan with more than $500 million in loans, grants, and surplus agricultural commodities to develop transportation facilities, increase agricultural production, expand the educational system, stimulate industry, and improve government administration. The [[Peace Corps]] was active in Afghanistan between 1962 and 1979.
After the April 1978 Saur Revolution, relations between the two nations deteriorated. In February 1979, U.S. Ambassador Adolph "Spike" Dubs was murdered in Kabul after Afghan security forces burst in on his kidnappers. The U.S. then reduced bilateral assistance and terminated a small military training program. All remaining assistance agreements were ended after the [[Soviet-Afghan War| Soviet invasion of Afghanistan]].
President [[Jimmy Carter|Carter]] reacted with "open-mouthed shock" to the Soviet invasion, and began promptly arming the Afghan insurgents.<ref>http://www.slate.com/id/2166661</ref> Vice-President Walter Mondale famously declared: "I cannot understand -- it just baffles me -- why the Soviets these last few years have behaved as they have. Maybe we have made some mistakes with them. Why did they have to build up all these arms? Why did they have to go into Afghanistan? Why can't they relax just a little bit about Eastern Europe? Why do they try every door to see if it is locked?"<ref>http://www.csmonitor.com/1981/0310/031029.html</ref> The Soviets, several times shortly before the invasion, had staged conversations with the Afghan leadership suggesting that they had no desire to intervene, even as the Politburo was—with much hesitation—considering such an intervention. The Soviets brutally murdered the Afghan President and his son, replacing him with a puppet regime, immediately after the invasion for fear that the US had secretly been collaborating with him.
As soon as the Soviets invaded in December, 1979, Carter, disgusted at the collapse of détente and alarmed at the rapid Soviet gains, terminated progress on arms limitations, slapped a grain embargo on Russia, withdrew from the [[1980 Moscow Olympics]], and (with near-unanimous support in Congress) sent the [[CIA]] in to arm, train and finance the Mujahideen rebels. The US had strong support from Britain, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, all of whom feared the Soviet invasion was the first step in a grand move south toward the oil-rich [[Persian Gulf]].
One of the CIA's longest and most expensive covert operations was the supplying of billions of dollars in arms to the Afghan mujahideen militants.<ref>Time Magazine, 13 May 2003, "The Oily Americans," http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,450997-2,00.html</ref> About $3 billion dollars were sent to equip them through the [[Pakistan]]i secret service, the ISI, in a program called ''Operation Cyclone''.
The Soviet military invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 significantly damaged the already tenuous relationship between Secretary of State [[Cyrus Vance]] and National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. Vance felt that Brzezinski's linkage of SALT II ratification to other Soviet activities, together with the growing domestic criticisms in the United States of the accord, convinced Brezhnev to decide on military intervention in Afghanistan. Brzezinski, however, later recounted that he repeatedly advanced proposals on how to maintain Afghanistan's "independence" and deter a Soviet invasion but was frustrated by the Department of State's opposition.
According to Brzezinski, a National Security Council working group on Afghanistan wrote several reports on the deteriorating situation in 1979, but President Carter ignored them until the Soviet intervention destroyed his illusions. Brzezinski has stated that the US provided communications equipment and limited financial aid to the mujahideen prior to the "formal" invasion, but only in response to the Soviet deployment of forces to Afghanistan and the 1978 coup, and with the intention of preventing further Soviet encroachment in the region.<ref>{{cite web|author=“” |url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGjAsQJh7OM&feature=channel |title=Brzezinski and the Afghan War Pt2 |publisher=YouTube |date= |accessdate=2010-07-10}}</ref> Two declassified documents signed by Carter shortly before the invasion do authorize the provision "unilaterally or through third countries as appropriate support to the Afghan insurgents either in the form of cash or non-military supplies" and the "worldwide" distribution of "non-attributable propaganda" to "expose" the leftist Afghan government as "despotic and subservient to the Soviet Union" and to "publicize the efforts of the Afghan insurgents to regain their country's sovereignty," but the records also show that the provision of arms to the rebels did not begin until 1980.<ref>http://www.activistmagazine.com/images/stories/government/carter_79-1581.jpg</ref><ref>http://www.activistmagazine.com/images/stories/government/carter_79-1579.jpg</ref> Vance's close aide Marshall Shulman "insists that the State Department worked hard to dissuade the Soviets from invading."
The Soviet invasion and occupation killed up to 2 million Afghans.<ref>http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat2.htm#Afghanistan</ref> Brzezinski defended the arming of the rebels in response, saying that it "was quite important in hastening the end of the conflict," thereby saving the lives of thousands of Afghans, but "not in deciding the conflict, because actually the fact is that even though we helped the mujaheddin, they would have continued fighting without our help, because they were also getting a lot of money from the Persian Gulf and the Arab states, and they weren't going to quit. They didn't decide to fight because we urged them to. They're fighters, and they prefer to be independent. They just happen to have a curious complex: they don't like foreigners with guns in their country. And they were going to fight the Soviets. Giving them weapons was a very important forward step in defeating the Soviets, and that's all to the good as far as I'm concerned." When he was asked if he thought it was the right decision in retrospect (given the Taliban's subsequent rise to power), he said: "Which decision? For the Soviets to go in? The decision was the Soviets', and they went in. The Afghans would have resisted anyway, and they were resisting. I just told you: in my view, the Afghans would have prevailed in the end anyway, 'cause they had access to money, they had access to weapons, and they had the will to fight."<ref>http://www.activistmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1110&Itemid=143</ref>
Carter enlarged his position into the "Carter Doctrine," by which the US announced its intention to defend the Gulf. Historians now believe that analysis was faulty and that the Soviets were not planning a grand move, but were concerned with loss of prestige and the possibility of a hostile Muslim regime that might destabilize its largely Muslim southern republics.<ref>David N. Gibbs, "Reassessing Soviet Motives for Invading Afghanistan: a Declassified History." ''Critical Asian Studies'' 2006 38(2): 239-263. </ref> The boycott of the [[Olympics]] humiliated the Soviets, who had hoped the games would validate their claim to moral equality in the world of nations; instead they were pariahs again.
===Iran's role===
===Iran's role===
The [[Shiite]] community, which constitutes about 20% of the Afghan population, regards Iran as its religious center; however, Afghanistan is predominantly [[Sunni]] and has maintained cordial relations with Iran since 1921. After the PDPA took power in 1978 the Shah of Iran began to support opposition groups fighting the Kabul regime, as did the [[Ruholla Khomeini|Khomeini]] regime and subsequent regimes in Iran. Refugees from Afghanistan fought for Iran during the [[Iran-Iraq War]], and Iran sent nationals to Afghanistan to assist the rebels and to propagate Iranian politics and ideology. Iranian leaders supported the formation of an Islamic state by providing various provisions, including radio and television equipment, but also supported the Hizb-e-Wahdat faction, a traditional ally that opposed Burhanuddin Rabbani and his Afghan Interim Government that ruled 1992-96.<ref> Hafizullah Emadi, "Exporting Iran's Revolution: the Radicalization of the Shiite Movement in Afghanistan." ''Middle Eastern Studies'' 1995 31(1): 1-12. Issn: 0026-3206 </ref>
The [[Shiite]] community, which constitutes about 20% of the Afghan population, regards Iran as its religious center; however, Afghanistan is predominantly [[Sunni]] and has maintained cordial relations with Iran since 1921. After the PDPA took power in 1978 the Shah of Iran began to support opposition groups fighting the Kabul regime, as did the [[Ruholla Khomeini|Khomeini]] regime and subsequent regimes in Iran. Refugees from Afghanistan fought for Iran during the [[Iran-Iraq War]], and Iran sent nationals to Afghanistan to assist the rebels and to propagate Iranian politics and ideology. Iranian leaders supported the formation of an Islamic state by providing various provisions, including radio and television equipment, but also supported the Hizb-e-Wahdat faction, a traditional ally that opposed Burhanuddin Rabbani and his Afghan Interim Government that ruled 1992-96.<ref> Hafizullah Emadi, "Exporting Iran's Revolution: the Radicalization of the Shiite Movement in Afghanistan." ''Middle Eastern Studies'' 1995 31(1): 1-12. Issn: 0026-3206 </ref>