SOUTHWEST ASIA: Selling the Carter Doctrine

A show of support for Pakistan and Saudi Arabia

Possibly inspired by the mountains that towered behind him, National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski was in an elevated mood when he inspected Pakistan's border with Afghanistan last week. "You should know that the entire world is outraged," he told a group of refugees at Sadda, urging them in effect to reclaim their land "because God is on your side." After lunching in the mess of the famed Khyber Rifles, Brzezinski was garlanded by area tribal chiefs and had his picture taken at the Khyber Pass, quipping that it would be "a historic picture—three weeks before the march on Kabul." He spotted a Pakistani soldier carrying a Chinese-made rifle and asked to see it fired. The heavy recoil knocked the embarrassed rifleman to the ground as the weapon sprayed bullets in all directions. "Any casualties?" asked Brzezinski only half in jest. Luckily, there were none.

Brzezinski and his traveling mate, Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher, were in the midst of a week-long trip to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Their mission: explaining the new Carter Doctrine of throwing an American security blanket over Southwest Asia and the Persian Gulf to the two states in the region most vital to the West. Their first stop was Islamabad, where a week earlier Foreign Ministers of 35 Islamic states had issued a ringing condemnation of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

In the Pakistani capital, the U.S. team talked with Military Strongman Mohammed Zia ul-Haq about how to protect Pakistan from the Soviet threat along its 1,400-mile border with Afghanistan. Brzezinski and Christopher reassured Zia that the U.S. intended to come to Pakistan's aid in the event of a Soviet invasion. Though they failed to agree on an aid package, the Pakistani general seemed very interested in a pledge of defense. At the outset, Zia asked for a treaty with the U.S. that would protect Pakistan from all of its neighbors. Such a pact could conceivably oblige the U.S. to defend Pakistan in some future conflict with India. Brzezinski demurred and persuaded Zia that a 1959 Executive agreement that grew out of the Eisenhower Doctrine to defend the Middle East against Communist aggression was strong enough.

Brzezinski, who played chess and kibitzed with reporters during the 19-hour flight to Islamabad, argued that Pakistan will be expected to defend itself against border skirmishes and limited incursions; the U.S. would intervene only if the country's security was threatened. Calling the talks "encouraging, fruitful and educational," Zia said that the American show of support "has brought new life to the 1959 agreement." Brzezinski and Christopher left behind a 15-man military group, headed by Assistant Secretary of Defense David McGiffert, to study Pakistan's defenses in the north and northwest and assess its arms needs.