Royal shoes

The collapse of the Taliban regime is not even in sight, and the US administration is already thinking about a post-Taliban Afghanistan. Despite initially strongly resisting the very idea that the US should become more actively involved in the construction of Afghan society after the end of war operations, American President George Bush increasingly imagines the future of Afghanistan without the Taliban.

Bush, therefore, drew lessons both from the military interventions carried out by his predecessors and from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (see next page). "We must not simply walk away as soon as the military objectives are achieved," Bush said recently. Presidents Andrew Johnson after the Great Civil War, Harry Truman after ordering the dropping of bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and recently Bill Clinton after the intervention for Kosovo. In other words, unlike war, peace does not "break out", peace is built. Robert Orr, a National Security Council official during the Clinton administration, called Bush's new strategy "Somalia Plus," alluding to the U.S. effort not to repeat the Somalia mistake.

THE CANDIDATE ZA OCA NATIONS: Although at this moment it is difficult to imagine the end of the war, let alone the government that will fill the vacuum after the collapse of the Taliban regime, assuming that military intervention is achieved, all eyes are on the deposed Afghan king Zahir Shah. "Only he has shoes big enough to fill the vacuum," says one Afghan analyst in exile, bearing in mind Afghanistan's political and military fragmentation into countless factions that sometimes form coalitions, sometimes split into even smaller groups.

Two major events cemented the one-time monarch as a candidate for the "father of the post-Taliban Afghan nation." In Rome, where the king has been in exile since he was overthrown in 1973, representatives of almost all opposition groups met in early October and agreed on the establishment of the Supreme Council of National Unity. The council would consist of 120 representatives of all ethnic and political groups and it would call for the convening of the Great Assembly (Loya jirga), an institution that has existed in Afghanistan for more than 1000 years. A few weeks later in the border city of Peshawar in Pakistan, it was held brother-in-law - a meeting that brought together more than 700 tribal elders, representatives of various political and military factions and hodjas. King Zahir Shah did not send a single representative to the meeting, and the shura ended with lukewarm support for the king. However, the declaration emphasized that the return of the king does not automatically mean the return of the monarchy in Afghanistan. The king thus gained support as someone to lead Afghanistan during a difficult transition period until a new government system was built. Loya jirga, under Afghan law, must meet on Afghan soil, and Taliban opponents fantasize that it will soon happen in Kabul. However, it is difficult to imagine when Kabul will be safe enough to host the Grand Assembly, which would bring together a large number of former and current enemies. It is also a big unknown whether King Zahir Shah can really represent a common denominator for all Afghan factions. The choice fell on him precisely because the US does not want to allow the representatives of the Northern Alliance to walk into Kabul victoriously, that is, for a bad government to replace a good one. In addition to the fact that the Alliance does not enjoy the support of the entire Afghan population, Pakistan would also suspend all cooperation with America, if the US allows the vacuum to be filled only by representatives of the Alliance, without including the moderate Taliban.

On the other hand, Pakistan does not like King Zahir Shah because of the memory of the days of his reign, when, in their opinion, he established too close relations with India, Pakistan's sworn enemy. The prospect of the king leading the nation to the creation of a new government is also thwarted by the tepid support the king enjoys from the Northern Alliance. In addition, it is very important that the citizens of Afghanistan do not experience the return of the king as an extended arm of American hegemony. Even those who remember him fondly as a ruler will strongly object if there is even the slightest doubt that the king is American and not the choice of the people of Afghanistan.

THE REFORMER: Zahir Shah was born in 1914 and became king at the age of 19, the same year that Hitler came to power in Germany, just a few hours after his father was assassinated. During the first years of his reign, the country was governed by his uncles. He was educated in Afghanistan and Paris. During World War II, King Zahir Shah saved the country from destruction by maintaining a course of neutrality. His cousin Mohammad Daud became prime minister in 1953, but the king deposed him ten years later, introducing deep political reforms that were supposed to transform the feudal Afghan society into a modern, European constitutional monarchy. He strengthened the institution of parliament and government, and prohibited members of the royal family from holding public office. Social reforms included greater rights for women, who were allowed to go to school, and many Afghans remember this period with nostalgia. In the early XNUMXs, however, a few years before he was ousted from power, Afghanistan was hit by a terrible drought. At the same time, members of the Pashtun ethnic group, to which the king belongs, concentrated on the border with Pakistan, increasingly demanded autonomy.

The king often traveled abroad, and he especially loved Italy and the spas with healing mud near Naples, where he was treated for lumbago. He learned the news that he had been overthrown while he was being treated with mud baths in one such spa in 1973. He was replaced by his cousin and former prime minister Daud, who declared Afghanistan a republic in 1973 and himself the president. King Zahir Shah has not returned to the country since then, and lives near Rome in a modest villa. The Soviet intervention soon followed and the war in Afghanistan practically has not stopped since that time.

"When the king left, peace went with him," remembers with nostalgia an Afghan who, like millions of his countrymen, is a refugee in Pakistan. "In his time, no one even killed mosquitoes..." adds another. Almost three decades have passed since then and only the oldest Afghans remember these idylls.

But even if we imagine the ideal conditions for the king to be accepted by all ethnic groups, the big question remains whether the monarch himself, who recently turned 87, will see that happy day.