ABSTRACT
Afghanistan barely figured on the US foreign policy map until late in 1979. Even the Saur revolution in 1978, bringing Afghan communists to power, was tolerable. Washington's policy reflected a willingness to recognize, more or less, the Soviet's greater interest in Afghanistan and the American inability to do much about it. Only when the Soviet Union directly intervened militarily and was perceived to have wider strategic ambitions did that view change. Over the course of what became known as a jihad, or holy struggle, against the Soviets and their Afghan communist allies, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) carried the burden of US involvement. But the Afghan president's determination to marginalize his Afghan communist allies soon became evident. Differences prevailed in Washington over the Geneva negotiations, some linked to issues that touched only peripherally on the Afghan conflict. The answer to Pakistan's search for surrogates in Afghanistan appeared to lie with the Taliban.
