The CIA's
Intervention in Afghanistan
Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski,
President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser
Le Nouvel Observateur. Paris 15-24 Jan. 1998
Question: The former director of the CIA,
Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American
intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the
Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President
Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?
Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid
to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded
Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely
otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for
secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote
a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going
to induce a Soviet military intervention.
Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate
of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and
looked to provoke it?
B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but
we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Q: When the Soviets justified their
intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the
United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of
truth. You don't regret anything today?
B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the
effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day
that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have
the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow
had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the
demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Q: And neither do you regret having
supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or
the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central
Europe and the end of the cold war?
Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has
been said and repeated Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.
B: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to
Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and
without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion
followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate
Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing
more than what unites the Christian countries.
Translated from the French by Bill Blum