Out of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal

In 1989, 10 years after invading Afghanistan, the last Soviet troops were pulled out under the terms of accords signed in Geneva. This book gives the inside story of the negotiations, with alternating chapters written by Diego Cordovez, the principal United Nations negotiator, and by Selig S. Harrison, an American specialist in Asian affairs. They tell of an opportunity for a constructive peace disastrously missed. The United States, holding all the cards, chose to oppose a Soviet offer of installing an interim regime headed by the deposed Afghan monarch, Zahir Shah, in favor of continuing to back their favored factions. In the game of superpower brinkmanship no attention was paid to the fact that those factions were Islamists fundamentally opposed to America.