Khalid Khan
Our region is engulfed in religious fanaticism and terrorism today, the foundations of which were laid by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who served from 1977 to 1981. Although he was generally considered a humble and honest person in his private life, his tenure proved catastrophic for our region, and we are still suffering the consequences of his policies.
Since its inception, Pakistan has traditionally been an ally of the United States and has served as the most significant representative partner of American, Western, or more precisely, imperialist interests in this region. Britain’s foresight regarding Russia was commendable—it had long anticipated Russia’s dream of reaching warm waters and had decided even before the partition of the subcontinent to use Pakistan as a buffer zone to counter this ambition. While several other factors were associated with this decision, the core strategy was to ensure that Pakistan did not establish amicable relations with Afghanistan, Iran, and India.
Internally, another key aspect of this imperialist strategy was to keep Pakistan in a state of political turmoil, prevent national consensus, and maintain divisions within the country along sectarian, ideological, linguistic, and provincial lines. To achieve these nefarious goals, imperialist powers relied on subservient politicians, loyal bureaucrats, and some military generals who were mere “yes-men.” Additionally, another major component of their strategy was to ensure that relations between Pakistan, Russia, and China remained unfavorable to such an extent that these two powers could not gain access to warm waters through economic and political means.
The Soviet Union’s gift of the Karachi Steel Mill and China’s CPEC project reflect this economic, political, and equal-partnership approach. It was Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who, for the first time, laid the foundation for an independent foreign policy by fostering closer ties with China and Russia and striving for balanced relations. Moreover, he extensively tried to unite Islamic nations on a single platform. These were the primary reasons why the U.S. not only decided to remove Bhutto but also devised a new strategy to promote religious extremism in South Asia, the Middle East, and Central Asia.
This new strategy placed Pakistan at its core, while Afghanistan was chosen as the battleground against Russia. Under President Jimmy Carter’s leadership, the U.S. administration deliberately attempted to deteriorate relations with Pakistan. By 1977, relations between Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s government and the U.S. had turned hostile, primarily due to Pakistan’s nuclear program and Bhutto’s independent foreign policy.
It was the era of the Cold War, and even a semi-socialist government was unacceptable to the U.S. In 1977, Bhutto directly accused the Carter administration of orchestrating his overthrow. Pakistan received extensive support after Bhutto’s removal and General Zia-ul-Haq’s rise to power. A significant reason for this shift was the Saur Revolution in Afghanistan. The U.S. had suffered a humiliating defeat in Vietnam and wanted to curtail the Soviet Union, which was providing financial and military assistance to Third World countries from Cuba to Vietnam and from South Africa to Angola.
Brzezinski admitted that the U.S. had begun supporting extremists before the Soviet intervention and expressed no remorse for his policies
Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, proposed that a jihad be launched in Afghanistan with Pakistan’s support to compel Russia to intervene militarily. It is crucial to remember that the Carter administration had begun supporting religious extremists against the Afghan government even before the Soviet Union’s intervention. Brzezinski’s primary objective was to drag Russia into war and intensify the conflict.
Years later, when Brzezinski was asked whether he regretted his policies, given that they had led to thousands of deaths in Afghanistan and Pakistan and fostered global extremism, he responded:
“Which is more important in world history? The collapse of the Soviet Union or the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan? A few agitated Muslims or Europe’s freedom and the end of the Cold War?”
In this interview, he also admitted that the U.S. had begun supporting extremists before the Soviet intervention and expressed no remorse for his policies.
For decades in Pakistan, the proxy war orchestrated by Jimmy Carter, Brzezinski, and U.S. Congressman Charlie Wilson—who played a key role in the so-called “Afghan Jihad” and was later glorified through the book and film Charlie Wilson’s War—was promoted under the guise of religious jihad. We were deceived in the name of religion, while the U.S. distanced itself from the region. However, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and particularly the Pashtun belt remain embroiled in war and religious extremism to this day.
While Carter was orchestrating bloodshed in Afghanistan under the banner of jihad, a socialist revolution erupted in Nicaragua. For decades, the Somoza family had maintained a dictatorship there, fully backed by the U.S. In response, farmers, laborers, students, and intellectuals formed an armed group called the Sandinistas, which eventually overthrew the dictatorship after a prolonged struggle. However, as soon as they came to power, the Carter administration created the anti-revolutionary group Contras, whose sole purpose was destruction.
Much like the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, the Contras attacked teachers, female health workers, and doctors and attempted to sabotage every developmental project. Supporting the Contras and Mujahideen was never about democracy or human rights—it was about crushing the post-World War II wave of anti-imperialist uprisings in the Third World.
After retirement, Carter undertook commendable initiatives. He openly opposed U.S. interventions in Venezuela and Cuba, labeled Israel a racist state, and advocated for Palestinian independence. Similarly, he critically assessed various aspects of U.S. foreign policy.
However, for the Third World—and particularly for our region—his policies were nothing short of a brutal imperialist onslaught. This teaches us an important lesson: a leader’s personal honesty or humility does not necessarily translate into a positive historical role. What truly matters is whether a leader challenges the system with progressive reforms or merely seeks to become a part of it.
A person with firm principles and ideologies begins transforming the world, whereas someone who conforms to the system remains complicit in its crimes, reinforcing its power rather than challenging it. This is why even an honest and humble individual can be forced into committing atrocities akin to those of Genghis Khan or Hulagu Khan.
Pakistan’s existence has now become indispensable for global stability, and the time has come for the nation to advance with full force
Jimmy Carter’s life reflects this historical inevitability—where a man with an otherwise decent personal life became an imperialist agent, responsible for the devastation of entire regions. The consequences of Carter’s policies continue to affect the world, including the U.S. itself. His strategy turned Afghanistan’s peaceful and traditional society into a hub of terrorism and religious extremism, reshaped Russia’s borders, facilitated jihadist movements in China, fostered religious fanaticism in Central Asia, deepened Iran’s global isolation, granted regional supremacy to India, and kept Pakistan embroiled in internal chaos.
This war not only strengthened our institutions, intelligence agencies, policymakers, and military but also provided an opportunity to make Pakistan a nuclear power. Once Pakistan acquired nuclear capability, it became permanently secure, eliminating any possibility of external aggression. However, this also provided adversarial forces with opportunities to exploit internal instability, which they continue to attempt.
Pakistan’s existence has now become indispensable for global stability, and the time has come for the nation to advance with full force. Achieving Pakistan’s progress and stability requires immediate attention to political and economic stability, governance and institutional reforms, constitutional and legal restructuring, national consensus, an independent foreign policy, the promotion of enlightenment, and the complete eradication of terrorism. Additionally, the military must be granted a formal constitutional role and be fully integrated into state affairs.
Without adopting an apologetic stance, Pakistan must operate according to its ground realities rather than the superficial rhetoric of global democracy and human rights. Political parties must undergo proper democratic and political training, and the Election Commission of Pakistan must be established as the country’s most functional, important, and credible institution.
Under the leadership of Army Chief General Syed Asim Munir, current state policies are highly balanced and appropriate. These policies must be pursued with determination, without compromise, fear, or unnecessary reconciliation. To align these state policies with the constitution, structural political reforms through constitutional amendments have become essential, ensuring that every step taken for Pakistan’s survival remains strictly constitutional and legal, leaving no room for international criticism.
