I recently read a 2001 New Yorker article entitled The Revolt of Islam, which stated the following:
Even the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979—a clear case of imperialist aggression, conquest, and domination—triggered only a muted response in the Islamic world. The P.L.O. observer at the United Nations defended the invasion, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference did little to protest it. South Yemen and Syria boycotted a meeting held to discuss the issue, Libya delivered an attack on the United States, and the P.L.O. representative abstained from voting and submitted his reservations in writing. "
Why didn't the governments of predominantly Muslim states challenge this Soviet invasion like they challenged Western (particularly American) imperialism?
Alot of the gulf states actually provide alot of monetary support to the mujahadeen that were fighting against the Soviet Union. So they definitely responded to the Soviet invasion. As far as some of the other states in the Middle East here is a small breakdown of what I knoe about a few.
The soviet union had very close relations with Iraq in at that time it sold Iraq huge amounts of military hardware and Iraq was considered aligned with the soviet union. The PLO also had very close relations with the Soviet Union at the time the KGB had been providing the PLO with weapons and training. The in the 1970s Iraq started buying military hardware from more other countries but the Soviet Union was always the country's number one military purchasee until 1991.
Egypt had also had a close relationship getting developement help from the Societ Union in the construction and funding for building the Aswan dam in southern Egypt. Although by the late 70s the relationship with the Soviet Union had gone sour and were at a low point although they got a little bit better in the 1980s so im not sure why there was Egyption indifference.
Syria also had close relations with the Soviet Union at the time and even today has a very close relationship with russia. Syria even let the Societ Union build a naval base in 1971 in Tartus Syria on the mediterranean coast that russia now controls today.
Aas far as Yemen goes South Yemen(yemen was 2 countries unil 1990) actually was a communist state at the time and had close relation economically and militarily with the Soviet Union.
I dont know too much about Iran or Jordan or Turkey or Lebanon or Oman during the time probably shouldnt have skipped that month of middle eastern history in college...