Editing Zbigniew Brzezinski (section)

====Afghanistan====
{{main|Operation Cyclone}}
[[File:Jimmy Carter and Prince Fahd at a meeting between U.S. and Saudi Arabian officials. - NARA - 174853.tif|thumb|250px|Carter, Brzezinski and Prince [[Fahd of Saudi Arabia]]]]
Communists under the leadership of [[Nur Muhammad Taraki]] [[Saur Revolution|seized power in Afghanistan]] on April 27, 1978.<ref name="Kaplan">{{cite book|author-link=Robert D. Kaplan|last=Kaplan|first=Robert D.|title=Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan|publisher=[[Random House|Knopf Doubleday]]|year=2008 |isbn=978-0-307-54698-2|pages=115–117}}</ref> The new regime—divided between Taraki's extremist [[Khalq]] faction and the more moderate [[Parcham]]—signed a treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union in December of that year.<ref name="Kaplan" /><ref name="Kepel">{{cite book|author-link=Gilles Kepel|last=Kepel|first=Gilles|title=Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam|publisher=[[I.B. Tauris]]|year=2006|isbn=978-1-84511-257-8|pages=138–139, 142–144}}</ref> Taraki's efforts to improve secular education and redistribute land were accompanied by mass executions (including of many conservative religious leaders) and political oppression unprecedented in Afghan history, igniting a revolt by [[Afghan mujahideen|mujahideen]] rebels.<ref name="Kaplan" />

Following a general uprising in April 1979, Taraki was deposed by Khalq rival [[Hafizullah Amin]] in September.<ref name="Kaplan" /><ref name="Kepel" /> Amin was considered a "brutal psychopath" by foreign observers; even the Soviets were alarmed by the brutality of the Afghan communists, and suspected Amin of being an agent of the U.S. [[Central Intelligence Agency]] (CIA), although that was not the case.<ref name="Kaplan" /><ref name="Kepel" /><ref name="Blight">{{cite book|last1=Blight|first1=James G.|title=Becoming Enemies: U.S.–Iran Relations and the Iran–Iraq War, 1979–1988|publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] Publishers|year=2012|isbn=978-1-4422-0830-8|pages=66, 69–70|display-authors=etal}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author-link=Steve Coll|last=Coll|first=Steve|title=[[Ghost Wars|Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001]]|publisher=[[Penguin Group]]|year=2004|isbn=9781594200076|pages=47–49|quote=Frustrated and hoping to discredit him, the KGB initially planted false stories that Amin was a CIA agent. In the autumn these rumors rebounded on the KGB in a strange case of "[[Blowback (intelligence)|blowback]]," the term used by spies to describe planted propaganda that filters back to confuse the country that first set the story loose.}}</ref> By December, Amin's government had lost control of much of the country, prompting the Soviet Union to [[Soviet–Afghan War|invade Afghanistan]], execute Amin, and install Parcham leader [[Babrak Karmal]] as president.<ref name="Kaplan" /><ref name="Kepel" />

President Carter was surprised by the invasion, as the consensus of the U.S. intelligence community during 1978 and 1979—reiterated as late as September 29, 1979—was that "Moscow would not intervene in force even if it appeared likely that the Khalq government was about to collapse." Indeed, Carter's diary entries from November 1979 until the Soviet invasion in late December contain only two short references to Afghanistan, and are instead preoccupied with the ongoing [[Iran hostage crisis|hostage crisis in Iran]].<ref name="Riedel">{{cite book|author-link=Bruce Riedel|last=Riedel|first=Bruce|title=What We Won: America's Secret War in Afghanistan, 1979–1989|publisher=[[Brookings Institution]] Press|year=2014|isbn=978-0-8157-2595-4|pages=ix-xi, 21–22, 93, 98–99, 105}}</ref> In the West, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was considered a threat to global security and the oil supplies of the [[Persian Gulf]].<ref name="Kepel" />

Moreover, the failure to accurately predict Soviet intentions caused American officials to reappraise the Soviet threat to both Iran and Pakistan, although it is now known that those fears were overblown. For example, U.S. intelligence closely followed Soviet exercises for an invasion of Iran throughout 1980, while an earlier warning from Brzezinski that "if the Soviets came to dominate Afghanistan, they could promote a separate [[Balochistan|Baluchistan]]&nbsp; ... [thus] dismembering Pakistan and Iran" took on new urgency.<ref name="Blight" /><ref name="Riedel" />

These concerns were a major factor in the unrequited efforts of both the [[Presidency of Jimmy Carter|Carter]] and [[Presidency of Ronald Reagan|Reagan administrations]] to improve relations with Iran, and resulted in massive aid to Pakistan's [[Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq]]. Zia's ties with the U.S. had been strained during Carter's presidency due to Pakistan's nuclear program and the execution of [[Zulfikar Ali Bhutto]] in April 1979, but Carter told Brzezinski and Secretary of State [[Cyrus Vance]] as early as January 1979 that it was vital to "repair our relationships with Pakistan" in light of the [[Iranian Revolution|unrest in Iran]].<ref name="Riedel" />

One initiative Carter authorized to achieve this goal was a collaboration between the CIA and Pakistan's [[Inter-Services Intelligence]] (ISI); through the ISI, the CIA began providing some $695,000<ref name="Tobin 2020"/> worth of non-lethal assistance to the mujahideen on July 3, 1979—several months prior to the Soviet invasion. The modest scope of this early collaboration was likely influenced by the understanding, later recounted by CIA official [[Robert Gates]], "that a substantial U.S. covert aid program" might have "raise[d] the stakes" thereby causing "the Soviets to intervene more directly and vigorously than otherwise intended".<ref name="Riedel" /><ref name="Gates">{{cite book|author-link=Robert Gates|last=Gates|first=Robert|title=From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War|publisher=[[Simon and Schuster]]|year=2007|isbn=978-1-4165-4336-7|pages=145–147}} When asked whether he expected that the revelations in his memoir (combined with an apocryphal quote attributed to Brzezinski) would inspire "a mind-bending number of conspiracy theories which adamantly—and wrongly—accuse the Carter Administration of luring the Soviets into Afghanistan", Gates replied: "No, because there was no basis in fact for an allegation the administration tried to draw the Soviets into Afghanistan militarily." See Gates, email communication with John Bernell White, Jr., October 15, 2011, as cited in {{cite web|last=White|first=John Bernell|url=http://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4790&context=gradschool_theses|title=The Strategic Mind Of Zbigniew Brzezinski: How A Native Pole Used Afghanistan To Protect His Homeland|date=May 2012|access-date=August 23, 2017|pages=45–46, 82}}</ref><ref name="Coll">{{cite book|author-link=Steve Coll|last=Coll|first=Steve|title=Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001|publisher=[[Penguin Group]]|year=2004|isbn=978-1-59420-007-6|pages=[https://archive.org/details/ghostwarssecreth00coll/page/87 87, 581]|quote=Contemporary memos—particularly those written in the first days after the Soviet invasion—make clear that while Brzezinski was determined to confront the Soviets in Afghanistan through covert action, he was also very worried the Soviets would prevail.&nbsp; ... Given this evidence and the enormous political and security costs that the invasion imposed on the Carter administration, any claim that Brzezinski lured the Soviets into Afghanistan warrants deep skepticism.}}</ref> The first shipment of U.S.weapons intended for the mujahideen reached Pakistan on January 10, 1980, shortly following the Soviet invasion.<ref name="Blight" />

In the aftermath of the invasion, Carter was determined to respond vigorously to what he considered a dangerous provocation. In a televised speech, he announced sanctions on the Soviet Union, promised renewed aid to Pakistan, and committed the U.S. to the Persian Gulf's defense.<ref name="Riedel" /><ref name="Gates" /> The thrust of U.S. policy for the duration of the war was determined by Carter in early 1980: Carter initiated [[Operation Cyclone|a program to arm the mujahideen through Pakistan's ISI]] and secured a pledge from Saudi Arabia to match U.S. funding for this purpose. U.S. support for the mujahideen accelerated under Carter's successor, [[Ronald Reagan]], at a final cost to U.S. taxpayers of some $3&nbsp;billion. The Soviets were unable to quell the insurgency and [[Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan|withdrew from Afghanistan]] in 1989, precipitating the [[dissolution of the Soviet Union]] itself.<ref name="Riedel" />

However, the decision to route U.S. aid through Pakistan led to massive fraud, as weapons sent to [[Karachi]] were frequently sold on the local market rather than delivered to the Afghan rebels; Karachi soon "became one of the most violent cities in the world". Pakistan also controlled which rebels received assistance: of the [[Afghan mujahideen|seven mujahideen groups]] supported by Zia's government, four espoused Islamic fundamentalist beliefs—and these fundamentalists received most of the funding.<ref name="Kepel" /> Years later, in a 1997 [[CNN]]/[[National Security Archive]] interview, Brzezinski detailed the strategy taken by the Carter administration against the Soviets in 1979:

<blockquote>We immediately launched a twofold process when we heard that the Soviets had entered Afghanistan. The first involved direct reactions and sanctions focused on the Soviet Union, and both the [[United States Department of State|State Department]] and the [[United States National Security Council|National Security Council]] prepared long lists of sanctions to be adopted, of steps to be taken to increase the international costs to the Soviet Union of their actions. And the second course of action led to my going to Pakistan a month or so after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, for the purpose of coordinating with the Pakistanis a joint response, the purpose of which would be to make the Soviets bleed for as much and as long as is possible; and we engaged in that effort in a collaborative sense with the Saudis, the Egyptians, the British, the Chinese, and we started providing weapons to the Mujaheddin, from various sources again—for example, some Soviet arms from the Egyptians and the Chinese. We even got Soviet arms from the [[Czechoslovakia|Czechoslovak]] communist government, since it was obviously susceptible to material incentives; and at some point we started buying arms for the Mujaheddin from the Soviet army in Afghanistan, because that army was increasingly corrupt.<ref name="gwu.edu">{{cite web|url=http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/interviews/episode-17/brzezinski1.html |title=Interview with Dr Zbigniew Brzezinski |date= June 13, 1997 |access-date=May 25, 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000829032721/http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/interviews/episode-17/brzezinski1.html |archive-date=August 29, 2000 }}</ref></blockquote>

====="Afghan Trap" theory=====
Following the [[September 11 attacks]], a theory that Brzezinski intentionally provoked the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 was widely repeated.<ref>See, for example, {{cite journal|url=https://monthlyreview.org/2022/04/01/mr-073-11-2022-04_0/|title=NOTES FROM THE EDITORS|journal=[[Monthly Review]]|volume=73|issue=11|date=April 2022|accessdate=2022-10-04|quote=Brzezinski&nbsp;... had laid the trap for the Soviets in Afghanistan. It was under Brzezinski's direction, following a secret directive signed by Carter in July 1979, that the CIA, working together with the arc of political Islam stretching from Muhammad Zia-ul Haq's Pakistan to the Saudi royals, recruited, armed, and trained the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. The CIA's buildup of the Mujahideen and various terrorist groups in Afghanistan precipitated the Soviet intervention, leading to an endless war that contributed to the destabilization of the Soviet Union itself. To queries as to whether he regretted establishing the arc of terrorism that was to lead to 9/11 and beyond, Brzezinski (who posed in photos with Mujahideen fighters) responded by simply saying that the destruction of the Soviet Union was worth it.}}</ref> Some adherents of this theory thus blamed Brzezinski (and the Carter administration) for events subsequent to the Soviet invasion, including the decades-long [[Afghanistan conflict (1978–present)]], the [[September 11 attacks]], and the 2016 [[Orlando nightclub shooting]]. A 2020 review of declassified U.S. documents by Conor Tobin in the journal ''[[Diplomatic History (journal)|Diplomatic History]]'' contends that this theory—referred to as the "Afghan Trap" theory by the author—is a misrepresentation of the historical record based almost entirely on a  "caricature" of Brzezinski as an anti-communist fanatic, a disputed statement attributed to Brzezinski by a ''[[L'Obs|Le Nouvel Observateur]]'' journalist in 1998 (which was "repeatedly den[ied]" by Brzezinski himself), "and the circumstantial fact that U.S. support antedated the invasion."<ref name="Tobin 2020"/> In addition to Tobin, several academic or journalistic sources have questioned the veracity of aspects of the "Afghan Trap" theory,<ref name="Coll 2004"/><ref name="NSarchive 2019"/><ref name="Vaïsse 2018"/><ref name="Leake 2022"/> as have at least two former high-ranking Carter administration officials.<ref name="Tobin 2020"/>

While it is true that the March [[1979 Herat uprising]] in Afghanistan and a desire to rebuild [[Pakistan–United States relations|strained U.S. relations]] with Pakistani leader [[Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq]] in light of the [[Iranian Revolution]] prompted Carter to sign presidential findings in July 1979 permitting the CIA to spend $695,000 on non-military assistance (e.g., "cash, medical equipment, and radio transmitters") to [[Afghan mujahideen]] insurgents (and on a propaganda campaign targeting the Soviet-backed leadership of the [[Democratic Republic of Afghanistan]] or DRA), internal deliberations show that "U.S. policies were almost wholly reactive&nbsp;... to the Soviets' escalating military presence" with policymakers rejecting "a ''substantial'' covert aid program" (including lethal provisions) "to avoid provoking Moscow." (The Soviet military and political presence in Afghanistan steadily increased throughout 1979, including "tens of millions of dollars in military aid provided by Moscow to the DRA.")<ref name="Tobin 2020"/>

According to Tobin, Brzezinski went to considerable lengths to dissuade the Soviets from invading Afghanistan, urging the Carter administration to publicize information regarding the growing Soviet military role in Afghanistan's nascent civil war and to explicitly warn the Soviets of severe sanctions in the event of an invasion; when his warnings were watered-down by the [[United States Department of State|State Department]] under the leadership of Secretary of State [[Cyrus Vance]], Brzezinski leaked information to a journalist, resulting in an August 1979 article in ''[[The New York Times]]'' headlined "U.S. Is Indirectly Pressing Russians to Halt Afghanistan Intervention." (Ironically, Soviet general [[Valentin Varennikov]] complained in 1995 that American officials had never made Afghanistan's strategic significance clear to their Soviet counterparts prior to December 1979, speculating—in line with the "Afghan Trap" theory—that this omission may have been deliberate as the U.S. "had an interest in us getting stuck in Afghanistan, and paying the greatest possible price for that.")<ref name="Tobin 2020"/> Furthermore, Brzezinski attempted to discretely negotiate a withdrawal of Soviet troops with [[List of ambassadors of Russia to the United States|Soviet ambassador]] [[Anatoly Dobrynin]] during 1980, privately conceding that the country would likely remain within the Soviet sphere of influence following a diplomatic settlement, as he had little confidence in the mujahideen's ability to inflict a military defeat on the Red Army.<ref name="Tobin 2020"/><ref name="Vaïsse 2018"/>

Carter administration officials [[Robert Gates]] and Vice President [[Walter Mondale]] criticized the "Afghan Trap" theory between 2010 and 2012, the former stating that it had "no basis in fact" and the latter calling it "a huge, unwarranted leap".<ref name="Tobin 2020"/> Tobin concludes: "The small-scale covert program that developed ''in response'' to the increasing Soviet influence was part of a contingency plan ''if'' the Soviets did intervene militarily, as Washington would be in a better position to make it difficult for them to consolidate their position, but not designed to induce an intervention."<ref name="Tobin 2020">{{cite journal|last=Tobin|first=Conor|title=The Myth of the "Afghan Trap": Zbigniew Brzezinski and Afghanistan, 1978–1979|journal=[[Diplomatic History (journal)|Diplomatic History]]|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|volume=44|issue=2|date=April 2020|pages=237–264|doi=10.1093/dh/dhz065|doi-access=free}}</ref> Historian Robert Rakove wrote, the notion of a U.S. effort to entrap the Soviet Union in Afghanistan has been "methodically and effectively refuted by Conor Tobin".<ref>{{cite book |last=Rakove |first=Robert B. |date=2023 |title=Days of Opportunity: The United States and Afghanistan Before the Soviet Invasion |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jaaoEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1592 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-55842-6 |page=5}}</ref> [[Steve Coll]] had previously stated in 2004 that "[c]ontemporary memos—particularly those written in the first days after the Soviet invasion—make clear that while Brzezinski was determined to confront the Soviets in Afghanistan through covert action, he was also very worried the Soviets would prevail.&nbsp;... Given this evidence and the enormous political and security costs that the invasion imposed on the Carter administration, any claim that Brzezinski lured the Soviets into Afghanistan warrants deep skepticism."<ref name="Coll 2004">{{cite book|author-link=Steve Coll|last=Coll|first=Steve|title=[[Ghost Wars|Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001]]|publisher=[[Penguin Group]]|year=2004|isbn=9781594200076|page=593}} cf. {{cite web|author-link=Zbigniew Brzezinski|last=Brzezinski|first=Zbigniew|url=http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB396/docs/1979-12-26%20Brzezinski%20to%20Carter%20on%20Afghanistan.pdf|title=Reflections on Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan|date=26 December 1979|access-date=30 April 2022}}</ref> Coll's "specific debunking of the Brzezinski ''Nouvel Observateur'' interview" was cited by the [[National Security Archive]] in 2019.<ref name="NSarchive 2019">{{cite web|last1=Blanton|first1=Tom|last2=Savranskaya|first2=Svetlana|url=https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/afghanistan-russia-programs/2019-01-29/soviet-invasion-afghanistan-1979-not-trumps-terrorists-nor-zbigs-warm-water-ports|title=The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, 1979: Not Trump's Terrorists, Nor Zbig's Warm Water Ports|publisher=[[National Security Archive]]|date=2019-01-29|accessdate=2022-10-04}}</ref> In 2016, [[Justin Vaïsse]] referred to "[t]he thesis according to which a trap was set having been dismissed" as "[s]uch a position would not be compatible with the archives".<ref name="Vaïsse 2018">{{cite book|author-link=Justin Vaïsse|last=Vaïsse|first=Justin|translator=Catherine Porter|chapter=In the White House|title=Zbigniew Brzezinski: America's Grand Strategist|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]|year=2018|isbn=9780674919488|pages=307–311}} (First published in 2016 as ''Zbigniew Brzezinski: Stratège de l’empire'' in French.)</ref> Elisabeth Leake, writing in 2022, agreed that "the original provision was certainly inadequate to force a Soviet armed intervention. Instead it adhered to broader US practices of providing limited covert support to anti-communist forces worldwide."<ref name="Leake 2022">{{cite book|last=Leake|first=Elisabeth|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DiFnEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA178|title=Afghan Crucible: The Soviet Invasion and the Making of Modern Afghanistan|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|year=2022|isbn=9780198846017|page=178}}</ref>