Sparks Commentary: In defense of Ronald Reagan: Helping the mujahideen in the Soviet-Afghan War

During the Reagan administration, we were allied with both Iraq and Afghanistan …

In the Ronald Reagan era, America had two allies that seem somewhat ironic today: Iraq and Afghanistan. In the twenty-first century, America would later go to war with both of these countries. Thus, some have perceived a contradiction between the earlier alliance and the later hostilities. But to me, it would seem that there is a common theme running through both of these policies, which is American national interest. I will attempt to explain this interest in this post, and show why Reagan's support for the mujahideen was both justified and worthwhile.

Three “mujahideen” in Asmar – Afghanistan, 1985

Foreign alliances should be temporary, and entered only upon grounds of expediency

I will not speak much about the War on Terror here, given that this is a post about a somewhat earlier subject (albeit still fairly recent). But some brief comments on the need to keep foreign alliances temporary, and to enter them only upon grounds of expediency, would seem warranted here as brief background. In his famous Farewell Address, President George Washington once said that “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world” (Source: Farewell Address, 1796). He also said in the same address that “Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.” (Source: Farewell Address, 1796) He also said in that same address that “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.” (Source: Farewell Address, 1796).

Reagan sitting with people from the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, 1983

This is why our alliance with the mujahideen was not continued indefinitely after the war

I tend to agree with all of this, as you may have guessed. As a nation, we are under no obligation to hold foreign alliances “permanent,” to honor them longer than we have agreed to do, or to enter into them (or extend them further) when it is not in our best interests to do so. We must enter into our chosen alliances only temporarily, and only when it is expedient for us to do so. And we must back out of them (whenever they don't work out for us), as soon as our prior commitments allow us to do so. To me, this temporary alliance with Afghanistan would seem to be one of these “extraordinary emergencies.” But in order to really appreciate the need for supporting the mujahideen at this time, it might be helpful to review some other things that were going on in the Muslim world at this time, and what bearing they may have had upon the conflict in Afghanistan during the Reagan administration.

Afghan guerrillas chosen to receive medical treatment in the United States – California, 1986

Some brief background from the Iran hostage crisis during Jimmy Carter's administration …

When Jimmy Carter was president, there was a massive revolution in Iran from 1978 to 1979. The Iranian Revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed shah from Iran, and the United States thus lost one of its strongest allies in the region. None of this was Jimmy Carter's fault, of course, but it would seem that his leadership may have exacerbated some subsequent events in Iran. The revolution replaced the shah with a so-called “Islamic Republic” under the Ayatollah Khomeini, and this new government soon took 52 American citizens hostage for more than a year. The Iran hostage crisis lasted for 444 days; going from November 4th, 1979 to January 20th, 1981. This stands as the longest hostage crisis in all of recorded history. Since many of the hostages were actually American diplomats, taking them hostage was a violation of international laws regarding diplomatic immunity. For example, Iran was a signatory to the “Vienna Convention” in 1965 (more than a decade before the crisis), which explicitly forbade them from doing this sort of thing. It was thus an act of war, and merited a somewhat tougher response than it received from Jimmy Carter.

Iran hostage crisis – Iranian students come up to US embassy in Tehran, 1979

… which Jimmy Carter made worse

Carter sent the United States military on a rescue attempt during this crisis, resulting in the accidental deaths of eight American servicemen and an Iranian civilian, after one of the helicopters crashed into a transport aircraft. But only six American diplomats were actually rescued, and then only by a later collaboration between Canada and the CIA. The Iran hostage crisis ended the day that Ronald Reagan replaced Carter as president, signed a few minutes before he actually took office that day. Carter defenders have thus pointed to the fact that these agreements were thus technically signed during the Carter administration. They thus interpret this to be “evidence” of Carter's diplomatic “success” in Iran. However, it is hard to believe that the impending inauguration of a more hostile American president (Ronald Reagan) had “nothing to do” with the Iranians' sudden desire to cooperate. More to the point, the sheer length of this hostage crisis makes Carter's “victories” seem very late at best, if one can even credit them to him at all.

Two American hostages during the Iranian siege of the U. S. embassy, 1979

The Soviet-Afghan War was largely concurrent with the Iran-Iraq War …

Why do I mention all of this? Because Afghanistan shares a border with Iran. Thus, it could not help being influenced by what happened to its neighbor to the west. More than halfway through the Iran hostage crisis, the Iraqi military invaded Iran. Thus, the Iran-Iraq War lasted through most of the Soviet-Afghan War. The Soviet-Afghan War began in 1979, some ten months before the Iran-Iraq War began in 1980. And the Soviet-Afghan War ended in 1989, some six months after the Iran-Iraq War ended in 1988. Thus, there was significant overlap between these two wars. Due to the souring of relations between Iran and the United States from the hostage crisis, both the United States and the Soviet Union supported Iraq (and not Iran) during the Iran-Iraq War; despite Iraq's use of weapons of mass destruction (namely, chemical weapons) against both the Iranians and some of its own people (namely, Iraq's own Kurdish population). But Afghanistan was a very different matter for us. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan during the Carter administration, Carter initially supported the mujahideen with “non-lethal aid.” Soon after, though, Carter switched to lethal aid; so any criticisms of Reagan for supporting the mujahideen with weapons would, if true, apply with equal force to his predecessor Jimmy Carter for commencing it. This is one of the many ironies in American support for the mujahideen, and in the frequent complaints about American “intervention” from the Democratic side.

Iranian child soldier in Iran-Iraq War (date unknown)

The mujahideen were defending their homes against an invasion by the Russians …

“Mujahideen” is just an Arabic word meaning “those engaged in jihad,” with “jihad” just being an Arabic word for “struggle.” The word “jihad” has become famous – or rather, infamous – in the West today, because of its association with terrorism in the twenty-first century. (In fact, this word is often identified in the West with the phrase “holy war”; and in practice, this reading is often accurate.) To be clear, I have no desire to defend twenty-first-century terrorism. But the earlier jihad by Afghanistan would seem to be a very different kettle of fish. If there is a circumstance in which “holy wars” are justified, it is in defending one's home from unjust invasions, like those that the Soviets unjustly perpetrated in Afghanistan. The mujahideen were defending their homeland against a Russian invasion at this time, and they were fully justified in doing so. If one thinks that the Afghanistan of the Taliban was bad (and it was), just imagine an Afghanistan that could have become nothing more than a base from which a communist superpower could have operated. This was a danger that we were facing in Afghanistan, and it is the reason that we ended up supporting the mujahideen throughout this massive conflict.

Soviet troops interrogate captured mujahideen – Afghanistan, 1986

Some consider Afghanistan to be the “Soviets' Vietnam,” which is (at least partially) true …

In the earlier American war in Vietnam, the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong had received economic and military support from the communist Chinese and the Soviet Russians. They would not have survived without communist superpower support. In a similar way, the mujahideen would not have survived without American superpower support; and actively depended upon the Americans for their continuance and (relative) freedom. Because of the realities of Soviet nuclear weapons in the Cold War, it would have been a mistake to send American combat troops to confront the Russians directly in Afghanistan. This is because direct confrontation between the superpowers would have unwisely risked the dreaded “nuclear apocalypse” of World War Three, perhaps even making it almost certain. But it would also have been fairly foolish to ignore the Soviet threat, in my opinion, by refusing to send money and weapons to their enemies at this time. It didn't matter if we had any ideological similarity to the mujahideen at this time – what mattered was that “the enemy of our enemy was our friend,” just as the Russians themselves had been our temporary allies during World War Two. By supporting the mujahideen, we thus prevented the communist menace from expanding any further, just as supporting the Russians had prevented the Nazi menace from spreading a generation or two earlier.

Soviet soldiers return from Afghanistan, 1986

Reagan prevented Afghanistan from falling to communism, and thus contained Soviet expansion

The Soviet war in Afghanistan had a number of strategic similarities to the American war in Vietnam. Thus, it is often called the “Soviets' Vietnam.” Like the Vietnam War, it was a guerrilla conflict fought by a vastly inferior force. Like the Vietnam War, the winner was supported by a much stronger foreign superpower. And like the Vietnam War, the winner eventually wore down the loser by prolonging the war as much as they could. In my opinion, one does not need to read “moral similarities” into these military comparisons, but the strategic military parallels are nonetheless undeniable. The Third World Afghans actually beat a large communist superpower with some of the latest weapons of the time, and they owed their military success to the American support. To some extent, they also owed their success to the administrations of Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush; but to a much larger extent, they owed it to the consistent support of Ronald Reagan throughout his administration. The war began more than a year before he took office, and ended about a month after he left office. This Cold War crisis thus lasted throughout his administration, and his support for the Afghans prevented the crisis from getting worse. It prevented further communist expansion, accelerated the collapse of the Soviet Union, and contributed to eventual American victory in the Cold War. In the long run, Reagan’s “Star Wars” program may have been the primary driver of the collapse of the Soviet Union, but his support for the mujahideen also played a considerable role there, and helped to end the Cold War on our terms, or something very like them.