(This is from the “Drafts” folder, written in 2021 but never posted. It has successfully survived the latest blog-migration. Edited in March 2023.)

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I hear that the U.S. president gave a press conference yesterday (August 18, 2021) which went about like this: “Good afternoon. Virus virus virus, virus virus, virus, — ahem, let me see, oh, Yes, — Virus virus virus…” and so on. He then abruptly left the room without taking questions.

The performance was remarkable because it was a few days after the dramatic collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghanistan government, about which I wrote a few days ago (“Who Lost Afghanistan?“). He  had still not mentioned the word at all.

“Afghanistan” has shaped up to be just about the worst blow to U.S. prestige in some time. That’s what people are saying, from high-ranking various highfalutin nabobs in Europe denouncing Biden down to the level of the Smartphone-peasant interested in outrage and sensation. These latter are excitable and easily distractable people of the Smartphone era, the instant-everything era.

The tech-landscape of 2020 is what I believe caused the panic of 2020, and in principle it can cause other panics, and actually I think the entire system now glides along on these panics. It is a truism that countries and organizations could have better foreign-policy outcomes if they were aware more of past experience, and not in a propagandistic way but in a sober way, but the way people consume information does not at all encourage this.

I was on a long flight and was stuck in a airline delay (14-hour delay in a layover city) when the news of the ongoing collapse began to spread. People standing around began circulating the word. With instant-updates something they’d otherwise be aware of at long arm’s distance became real. As usual now, everyone with any interest became a mini AP newswire and expert commentator.

The surrealism of the bland virus talk amid the Afghanistan panic and uproar was so striking not because virus-virus-virus is so different from what these people have been talking about for about a year-and-a-half now (the extended annus horribilis 2020, the year of lockdown carried over into 2021), but because he seemed to be studiously ignoring the Afghanistan debacle. Everyone wants to know about the Afghanistan collapse; no one cares about the virus-virus-virus talk (for now).

I immediately thought to 1989 and wondered how the Soviet Union handled its pullout from the same muck it had foolishly became involved in. To that end, I found a 1988 Washington Post article commenting on then-rumors the Soviet Union’s proposed withdrawal from Afghanistan. The article (“Does Moscow Really plan on leaving Afghanistan?”) is dated some months before the Soviet Union’s detachment from that place actually began. I copy the text below as a historical document.

In reading the Washington Post article today, we have to judge the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan over nine or ten years as relatively more successful than the USA’s. It took years for the Soviet-backed government to lose after 1988/89, whereas the USA’s client state collapsed so spectacularly within mere weeks of the pullout signal, and after a much-bigger investment by USA’s taxpayer (said to be two or three trillion dollars) who never got a vote on whether it was a good idea to sink twenty years on such a project or not. A huge investment of extremely questionable wisdom or the usual imperial hubris. In other words, it looks like it was “for nothing.” How many thousands of miles of high-speed rail or maglev could have been up by now with even a healthy portion of that two or three trillion?

In any case, the Washington Post article deals with the same question as the Smartphone-experts are so concerned with today, except that the historical actor of Biden-2021 is replaced with Gorbachev-1988. As a foreign-policy problem, all the pins are standing, aligned to very similar places on the floor, and the onlookers are saying similar things. The biggest difference is that the Cold War spirit has this writer in the Washington Post (Lally Weymouth, 1943-, who seems to have had elite connections to the newspaper) reflecting the USA’s pro-“Mujaheddin” positioning of the time. She even has a section on the “Mujaheddin” reaction to the withdrawal rumors, alongside China’s, Pakistan’s, and so on.

A lot of Cold War cheerleaders praised the CIA’s backing of the “Mujaheddin” as some great victory worthy of recalling in song and story (and movie). That Mujaheddin later became known as “the Taliban.” The old myths about how great the CIA was for backing them get tangled up in the Taliban’s status as bad-guys. The whole thing is confusing, and a little ridiculous. Such was the Afghanistan venture of the 2000s, 2010s, and its farcical denouement of 2021.

I remember already as early as 2006, one day, suddenly thinking: “Why are ‘we’ still in Afghanistan?” Jumping ahead fifteen years, my skepticism was right. In the meantime, around 2008 and 2009, a cousin of mine who enthusiastically embedded himself in a career in the U.S. Air Force (now somewhere else in the national-security apparatus) was in Afghanistan. He spoke of what he did as being part of a team going from village to village team handing out goodies to village elders. Virtually anything they wanted they would get. Interesting, I thought, but a little ridiculous to play Santa Claus with the U.S. military.

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DOES MOSCOW REALLY PLAN ON LEAVING AFGHANISTAN?

By Lally Weymouth
Washington Post, Feb. 21, 1988

Islamabad, Pakistan — “I have never seen a test case like this,” says French diplomat Jean-Francois Deniau of the proposed Soviet pullout from Afghanistan. “It’s the only way we can see if Gorbachev can do what he says. It’s so important for freedom and for hope. It’s like D-Day … We can’t accept that a question like this will receive a false solution.”

A real solution, says the French special envoy of Afghanistan, would be the complete withdrawal of Soviet troops and the creation of a truly independent country — as friendly with Pakistan as with the Soviet Union.

The French diplomat is asking the right questions: Is Mikhail Gorbachev’s announcement that the Soviets will withdraw from Afghanistan — trumpeted around the world this month — for real? Does Moscow plan for a “real solution,” or just a cosmetic one that maintains a Soviet proxy government in Kabul? And will the Reagan administration, anxious for a foreign-policy success, accept a false solution?

After his talks in Moscow last week, Secretary of State George Shultz indicated he’s confident the Russians really are preparing to pull out, and there were reports of Soviet troops being “garrisoned in a more-defensive way.”

But Afghan guerrilla leaders worry that the Reagan administration may accept a deal that would halt U.S. aid to the mujaheddin at the start of a 10-month period of promised Soviet troop withdrawal. In fact, some of these Afghans charged last week that there already has been a slowdown of U.S. military aid. Such a deal, made without the participation of the Afghan resistance fighters who waged the war, could well collapse — with the resistance fighting on and Afghanistan becoming a second Lebanon.

A clear picture of what’s at stake in the current diplomatic debate over Afghanistan emerges from conversations with some of the key players — in the Soviet Union, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China. What comes through above all is a sense of uncertainty about what really lies ahead in Afghanistan. Many of those most closely involved are skeptical about Soviet intentions and doubtful that it will be possible to create the neutral, nonaligned Afghanistan that nearly everyone proclaims as the goal. These comments provide a healthy antidote to the optimistic expectations prevalent now in Washington that a lasting settlement of the Afghan conflict is in sight.

Here’s a summary of what some of they key officials told me in interviews during the last two months [Jan. and Feb. 1988]:

THE SOVIET UNION. Soviet First Deputy Foreign Minister Yuli Vorontsov claims that as a result of the so-called “new thinking,” the Soviets have decided to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan and to arrive at a political settlement. But Vorontsov insists that withdrawal does not mean defeat. Indeed, he notes that “we haven’t used all the military power we could have applied.”

Anatoliy Dobrynin, head of the Soviet International Department, says he favors withdrawal but warns that if the withdrawing Soviet troops come under attack, “it will make the process of withdrawal at any cost.”

The future Afghanistan that Dobrynin says he envisions is a “neutral or nonaligned country with no foreign bases.” (The Soviets use the words neutral and nonaligned interchangeably, ignoring the differences between Austria, a neutral pro-West country, and Angola, a Marxist regime that describes itself as nonaligned.) Asked where the neutrals will come from — in a country where one side has been killing the other for the last eight years — Dobrynin concedes it is difficult to say.

The Soviets expect that the Geneva accords between Pakistan and Afghanistan will stop Western aid to the mujaheddin from coming across the Pakistani border. But Iran, home to another 1.5 million Afghan refugees, is another gateway for aid, and Iran is not part of the Geneva talks. Vorontsov says the Soviets are hoping to get the Iranians to seal their border, too.

Even if the Soviets withdraw their troop,s says Ambassador-at-large Nicholai Kozyrev, they will continue to “provide assistance to Afghanistan.” Economic relations, he said, have good prospects. After all, the Soviet Union has signed about 300 economic treaties with the Soviet-backed Afghan government and it is hoping that the next government will assume the obligations in these treaties. One treaty is thought by Pakistani intelligence to cede the Wakhun corridor to the Soviet Union.

Both Kozyrev and Vorontsov say that Soviet advisors will remain in Afghanistan even if troops are withdrawn. At present there are said to be 9,000 Soviet advisors in Afghanistan — directing every aspect of Afghan life.

AFGHANISTAN. In Kabul, signs of Soviet control are evident everywhere from the moment you land at the airport. My Aeroflot plane was encircled as it landed by other Soviet planes that dropped flares to distract the Stinger missiles that the mujaheddin might use.

It’s easy to spot Soviet convoys rolling down the road. And you can’t overlook the large, centrally located KGB headquarters. The KGB, and its Afghan counterpart, known as KHAD, are said to rule the city. Remarks one Western diplomat: “Here, there is not one centimeter of change.”

“It’s a complete and methodic colonization,” explains one diplomat in regard to the Sovietization of Afghanistan. Since 1980 when they invaded, the Soviets have taken about 60,000 young Afghans to the Soviet Union to be “educated.” “All the main officers in the Afghan administration were formed in the USSR,” says a knowledgeable Western source in Kabul.

In Kabul, I found the diplomatic community surprisingly united in their conviction that the Soviets aren’t likely to withdraw from Afghanistan — and that even if they do withdraw some troops, Soviet influence will not disappear.

One senior western diplomat in Kabul made the case most effectively. “The Soviet Union doesn’t want to abandon Afghanistan,” he says. “The Soviets want you, by diplomatic means, to help them stay in Afghanistan . . . . They want to deceive your country . . . . Afghanistan isn’t Vietnam. Afghanistan is at the border of the Soviet Union. They want to stay and they want the guarantee of the United States that they can stay.”

The West is overestimating the mujaheddin, says this veteran diplomat in Kabul. He insists that western analysts are wrong in predicting a bloodbath if Soviet troops withdraw, as the mujaheddin take their revenge on the puppet Afghan regime: “Even if the Soviets troops pulled back, the Kabul regime will be aided by advisors, weapons and money. It is possible that it is strong enough to resist and the mujaheddin are divided and will not succeed.”

PAKISTAN. There is pressure on Pakistan to agree to a settlement at the upcoming Geneva meeting with the Afghan government, scheduled for March 2. Gorbachev said a week ago that if an agreement is signed by mid-March, then the Soviets will start to pull out their troops in mid-May. With a summit coming up in June, American officials would like to have the Afghan war settled so that it won’t obstruct disarmament talks.

The Geneva negotiations have been underway since 1982. So far, Pakistan and Afghanistan have managed to agree on three points: reciprocal assurances of non-interference and non-intervention by Afghanistan and Pakistan; guarantees of this non-interference by the Soviet Union and the United States; the right of Afghan refugees to return to their homeland. A fourth item that would provide a time-frame for withdrawal of Soviet troops hasn’t yet been resolved.

Gorbachev’s recent proposal of a 10-month withdrawal period seemed to close the gap, and some analysts thought a settlement was near. Then Pakistan’s President Zia ul-Haq introduced a new element when he told me in an interview last month that he would not sign the Geneva Accords with the Soviet-backed president of Afghanistan, Najibullah. Zia said he would sign the accords with a coalition government formed of and by Afghans and controlled by the mujaheddin and Afghan exiles.

The reason for President Zia’s demand for an interim government is that he wants to be sure that an agreement is a real agreement — that it will insure both the withdrawal of Soviet troops and the ability of the 3.5 million Afghan refugees housed in Pakistan to return to their homes.

A former senior Pakistani official explains that Islamabad is worried that if Pakistan signs the Geneva accords with Najibullah, it will achieve what Deniau calls a false settlement — one in which the mujaheddin are excluded and continue to fight, one that gives Najibullah the legitimacy he has been denied for so long and one which leaves Pakistan stuck with the Afghan refugees, who won’t return home as long as Najibullah reigns.

The present Soviet strategy, explains one senior Pakistani official, is to improve relations with both Iran and Pakistan so that “sandwiched between the two, Soviet security in Afghanistan can be insured.” In five to 10 years, according to one knowledgable Pakistani, the Soviets expect to have pro-Soviet governments in both Tehran and Islamabad: “That could be not an unreasonable expectation,” he says. “Then Soviet influence could extend into India, Pakistan, Iran and Syria, and you would have a whole belt.”

As for Afghanistan’s future, a Pakistani defense analyst explains: “I think the Soviets will withdraw but leave Afghanistan in a state of civil war like Lebanon so they retain the option of returning.”

Summing up Afghanistan’s future with an analogy, one Pakistani official asks: “Is it possible for Mexico to have any other influence than the United States? A superpower expects its shadow to fall on Afghanistan.”

CHINA. Although President Zia is often portrayed as a hardliner, Chinese offcials and analysts take an even tougher position — skeptical of Soviet intentions to withdraw from Afghanistan and convinced that increased aid to the resistance is the key to removing the Soviets from Afghanistan. (An end to the conflict in Afghanistan has been one of China’s three conditions for improving relations with the Soviet Union.)

Chinese defense analysts at the Beijing Institute of Strategic Studies express doubt that the Soviets are sincere in their stated intention to withdraw from Afghanistan. “The Soviet condition is that the United States and other countries stop interference,” says one expert. “For the United States and China to cut off the resistance is a condition that must not be accepted.”

The Chinese analysts agree that the so-called “southern strategy” of the Soviet Union — the drive to control warm-water ports — hasn’t changed. “It started back in the Czarist period,” says one. “It’s their dream. They won’t give up what they have achieved: They have got Afghanistan and it’s a springboard for the Soviet Union.”

President Zia of Pakistan had disclosed in our interview that Chinese aid to the resistance was as important as U.S. aid. A senior Chinese official, speaking anonymously, confirmed Beijing’s role: “We have been helping the Afghan resistance forces for many years now with arms and money and are still continuing to do that.” The defense analysts advocate increased aid to the resistance from both the United States and China as the most effective way to persuade the Soviets to withdraw from Afghanistan. Argues one: “The right approach isn’t to reduce our bargaining position but to reduce theirs. We should increase our aid to the Afghan resistance and not stop until after the Soviet Union withdraws its troops”.

One senior foreign ministry official warns that “some U.S. friends are too optimistic about the Soviet withdrawal.” Huan Xiang, a senior official, puts it this way: “I guess the Soviets do want to withdraw but how to withdraw is the question. They want to leave a pro-Soviet government in Afghanistan and are finding it difficult.”

THE MUJAHEDDIN. The last word belongs to Younis Khalis, one of the leaders of the Afghan resistance, and it doesn’t bode well for a negotiated settlement. “We said the Russians should leave Afghanistan. This is our suggestion,” says Khalis. But he isn’t interested in Zia’s idea of forming an interim government that would give even a minor role to Najibullah’s party, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, or PDPA: “We will never accept any communist element in a future government of Afghanistan.”

Khalis says the resistance groups “reject the Geneva negotiations because the real parties {to the conflict}, the mujaheddin and the Russians, were not participating. Any outcome of such a negotiation would not be acceptable to the mujaheddin. The Russians, if they really want to leave Afghanistan, should suggest negotiations with the mujaheddin. Then we will be ready to sit down and negotiate about a peace settlement. There is nothing in between.”

Lally Weymouth writes regularly about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. [/1988]

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