The nearly eight-year-old war in Afghanistan is by no means the oldest continuing struggle - that record is most likely held by the fight in Eritrea, now well into its second generation. But none is of greater geopolitical importance than Afghanistan and no other appears to be on the brink of such sweeping change.
On face value, a good case can be made for each of the involved parties wanting to see the war concluded swiftly.
Pakistan, now hosting more than three million Afghan neighbors as refugees, has had its purse strings - and some say its patience as well - stretched to the limit. The Soviets, undoubtedly pitted against a resistance movement far more tenacious than they thought possible, now pay plenty in terms of men, materiel, and international prestige. For the United States, an acceptable peace would reduce aid and expenditure as well as be a diplomatic and geopolitical victory, with the first palpable reversal of Soviet expansionism.
For the Afghans themselves - more than five million of whom are crowded into refugee camps from Iran to the Himalayas - there is the hope of going home, a hope that grows stranger daily.
Despite the serious efforts of Pakistan, international aid groups, and allies like Saudi Arabia, the Arab Emirates, and the United States, there is widespread hunger in the camps. Unwilling to be shunted off to distant facilities in the Punjab, more than a million refugees choose to remain with their extended families and neighbors in congested border areas like Peshawar and Quetta.
Remaining unregistered, hence on no one's ration books, they eat from the common pot; food meant for 20 often serves 30 or more. Infant and child mortality rates are more than 50 percent and the highest in the world due to malnutrition and tetanus. Mothers, expected in developed countries to have hemoglobin counts of 14 to 16, rarely reach eight and often fall as low as four.
They have reason aplenty to want to go home, so long as it is not to the Soviet-occupied nation they fled. Yet with the January cease-fire offer from the regime in Kabul, and the subsequent rounds of proximity talks in Geneva, there is no doubt that the hopeful Afghans see Moscow's hints of a troop withdrawal as a symptom of the Soviet Union's greater problem and not just a benevolent offer.
The Afghans believe they are winning, and there is reason to believe they are right. They harbor no illusions of defeating the Soviet Union's mighty armies, but their military skills are increasing dramatically and the Soviets pay a fearsome price.
Formerly a fractious lot composed of several racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic groups, and many more feuding tribes, the Afghans have been lumped together in the same refugee camps facing a common enemy more odious than their local enmities. The seven mujahideen party leaders have learned to work together closely, and so have their troops; in the past years nearly every major mujahideen offensive has involved two or more parties working in unison.
Thanks to receiving high-tech weapons from the West - notably the Stinger
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