The year 1979 marked a sea change in politics and attitudes with the opening up of the Asian power to market forces, the election of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom (presaging the election of President Ronald Reagan in the United States), the election of a Polish cardinal to the papacy and the fatal Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The latter decision not only helped to bankrupt the Soviet Union (quite apart from the moral crisis it engendered), leading to its collapse a decade later, but also brought political Islam into sharper relief with the emergence of the Afghan mujahideen.
