Prelude to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

International Reactions

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Moscow, not surprisingly, hailed Daoud's takeover. His record in facilitating extensive Soviet influence, and the fact that Soviet-supported political and military factions had backed his move, were viewed in Moscow as promising signs for the future. A message from the Soviet leadership a week after the takeover expressed confidence that the "friendship and ... cooperation" between their governments would "further successfully develop."10 Offers of increased assistance followed, and during a visit to Moscow's casino gambling online in June 1974, Daoud concluded an agreement for an additional 0 million in economic assistance.The Soviets were investing in the expected future accession to power of Karmal and his Parcham faction, which they considered more pliable than the headstrong, confrontational Khalq.11

The implications of Daoud's coup for expanding Soviet power in the region generated shared concerns in Washington, Tehran and Islamabad. The leaders in Iran and Pakistan made this clear to US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger when he visited their capitals in November 1973. Their worst nightmare was of Soviet power creeping closer to the Indian Ocean. Iran took the lead in a joint effort to use generous economic and technical assistance to wean Daoud away from dependence on Moscow and to persuade him to shed the Soviet-backed factions in his government. In 1974, Iran gave $40 million in easy credit to the Daoud regime as an initial step in what subsequently would develop into an economic aid package larger than those offered by any other group including Moscow. Secretary Kissinger visited Kabul in November 1974, and shortly thereafter dispatched a delegation from the US Agency for International Development to Afghanistan with an offer of economic and technical assistance.12

A significant impediment to US political and economic initiatives, however, was the continuing conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan over the status of the ethnic Pashtuns

in Pakistan's border regions.13 This ongoing antagonism in the face of the US-Pakistan anticommunist alliance had impeded US aid to Afghanistan during Daoud's earlier tenure as head of the government and contributed to his turn to Moscow.14 Iran, in the wake of a booming oil market, offered a potential new source of assistance. But once again, Afghan antagonism toward Pakistan impeded an offer of aid. Because of Tehran's status in US regional security arrangements, the Shah found himself with little room for maneuver. He also had his own problems with ethnic minority spillovers in Iran.

These issues were escalating at the time of Daoud's coup. By early 1974, an armed revolt was underway in Baluchistan, the southwestern region of Pakistan bordering on Afghanistan and Iran. In northwest Pakistan, populated mainly by ethnic Afghan-Pashtuns, insurrectionist sabotage was a common occurrence. The extent of the Daoud regime's involvement in these insurrections has been a matter of some debate, but he clearly was allowing Baluch resistance fighters to set up bases in Afghanistan, and was providing sanctuary to Pashtun dissidents who were under warrant of arrest in Pakistan.15

To retaliate against Afghanistan's actions, Pakistan provided funds, material and weapons to Islamic fundamentalist organizations and other anti-Daoud Afghan extremists conducting raids and sabotage inside Afghanistan. A former member of Pakistan's government at the time has insisted that these operations were not intended to overthrow Daoud but to force him to negotiate.16 This could explain why Iran, at the same time it was offering economic aid to Daoud and pressing him to resolve the conflict with Pakistan, was also supplying US weapons and equipment to the insurgent groups in Afghanistan. Some of this material went through Pakistani channels and some passed directly to groups operating in western Afghanistan. Iran, because of its own sizable Baluch community, had its own motives for seeing the armed revolt in Baluchistan quelled, and provided Pakistan with US helicopters for use in this effort. According to at least one source, these actions by Iran were carried out in "loose collaboration" with the US. Egypt and Saudi Arabia also were providing support to Afghan Islamic fundamentalist groups,17 some of which would have a lasting presence on the Afghan battleground.

A former deputy foreign minister of Afghanistan has said that a message came through clearly in diplomatic channels: demonstrable efforts to resolve the conflict with Pakistan were necessary if Daoud hoped to sustain significant economic aid from the US and its allies. Iran's Prime Minister, visiting Kabul in August 1974, proposed the opening of a dialogue between Afghan and Pakistani representatives, as did Turkish officials. Kissinger pressed the issue in his visit in November.18

Daoud had his own reasons for widening his international sources of support and suppressing the power of Soviet-backed elements inside Afghanistan. One observer on the scene has said that Daoud probably understood the motives and objectives of the Parcham faction better than it understood his.19 So it is hard to assess how much the external pressures and enticements accounted for his turning away from Moscow and the Soviet-backed factions inside Afghanistan, but turn he did.