While Jimmy Carter was president, his critics claimed his foreign policy was weak and had emboldened the Soviet Union. Carter, who is 98 and recently entered home hospice treatment, is today known for having prioritized human rights during his term. Yet this view forgets that in Afghanistan, Carter launched an unnecessarily aggressive effort against the USSR that flew in the face of his rhetoric.
That policy’s cost has been enormous: the rise of al-Qaida, America’s 20-year war against the Taliban, and decades of civil war in Afghanistan.
Conflict began in 1978 when the left-wing People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, or PDPA, seized power. The PDPA expanded women’s rights by banning forced marriages and reducing the oppressive bride price to a nominal fee, among other measures. Facing an exceptionally low female literacy rate, they made education compulsory for girls.
