ABSTRACT
Iran and Iraq were not the only places in the Middle East to endure great turbulence in the 1980s: the last years of the Cold War. The Soviet Union conducted a very costly war in Afghanistan and the Lebanese Civil War worsened, while there was a revolt of Palestinians living in the West Bank and the rise of an insurgency among the Kurdish population in eastern Turkey. Russian military activities in Afghanistan had begun in the competition between the Russian and British empires for predominance in Central Asia known as the “Great Game”. The Soviet-Afghan War of the 1980s had a pivotal impact on the Soviet Union’s sense of self. It became a critical factor in the demise of the Soviet Union just shortly after the debacle in Afghanistan. The rapid deterioration of civil order in Lebanon caused concern in the Arab League. This led to a peace initiative brokered by Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Morocco.
