The Return of the King
Back to the future in Afghanistan.

By James S. Robbins, professor of international relations at the National Defense University.
October 1, 2001 1:35 p.m.

Editor's note: The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of NDU, the Department of Defense, or the government of the United States.

s an octogenarian living in Italy the answer to Afghanistan's problems? Mohammed Zahir Shah, former King of Afghanistan, in exile in Rome, has offered to preside over a Loya Jirgha, a traditional gathering of tribal and religious leaders, to set up a post-Taliban Afghan government, and serve as interim leader until parliamentary elections can be held. The United States, Britain, Russia, and the U.N. are considering the proposal seriously. The Northern Alliance resistance movement has signed on. But not everyone is happy about the prospect of the king's return. This weekend, six Afghanis were taken into custody in the cities of Khost and Gardez for distributing pro-monarchy leaflets in; they will face the death penalty. Opposition leader Golbudin Hekmatyar has stated, "If Zahir Shah wants to return, he should shade his eyes," meaning he would be killed. But the aged monarch is philosophical about these kinds of threats. "At my age there is nothing that can happen to me," he said. "My aim is to see a happy Afghanistan."

"Happy Afghanistan" may sound like an oxymoron, but many older Afghans can recall the calmer days of Zahir Shah's reign. He ascended the throne in 1933 at age 18 after the assassination of his father Nadir. The boy king, guided by his advisers, ushered in a 40-year period of prosperity and stability. Zahir Shah was a pro-western, moderate, liberalizing monarch who brought about parliamentary reform and economic development. He instituted universal suffrage, expanded educational opportunities, and pressed for women's rights. At the same time he respected the traditional powers of the Afghan tribal leaders and the customs of the many peoples who lived in his kingdom. Zahir Shah faced opposition from both religious and secular radicals, but they were not as influential as they would later become, and most Afghans supported him. His Afghanistan was far from perfect, but was on the right path, and was at peace.

The descent to madness began in 1973. Prime Minister Daoud, Zahir Shah's cousin, staged a bloodless coup while the King was in Italy for medical treatment. Daoud abolished the monarchy and declared himself president. He imposed one-party rule and stepped up the pace of "reform," which meant centralizing power in Kabul. These moves were welcomed as progress by the western international development establishment, and Daoud was rewarded by UNESCO the following year when the ancient city of Herat was designated "part of the world's cultural heritage." (Today it is a war-torn ruin.) In 1978 Daoud was overthrown and murdered by Moscow backed communists, who instituted an 18-month reign of terror. Ironically the Soviet Invasion of 1979 was an attempt to impose a more moderate Communist regime. The Soviets believed they could accomplish this in a few weeks; instead they were drawn into a ten-year guerilla struggle resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, and, ultimately, a humiliating withdrawal. The Soviet-Afghan War was the trial by fire for Mujahedin who would later coalesce in Osama Bin Laden's al Qaida network, and also spawned (with Pakistani backing) the Taliban movement that seized power in 1995. The Taliban have proved to be no more humane in their pursuit of the perfect Islamic order than the Communists trying to build socialism. Today Afghanistan is in ruins, impoverished and isolated from the world. Zahir Shah's reign was a golden age by comparison.

The former king has stated that whether Afghanistan becomes a monarchy or republic will be up to the Afghan people, and there is some indication that they are in his corner. The State Department conducted an opinion poll in the Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan last summer showing half the Afghans consider Zahir Shah to be the best leader to resolve the problems of Afghanistan. Taliban leader Mullah Omar came in second with a weak 11%. The poll also showed that about 55% believed that cessation of war and national revival are the most important priorities. (One wonders what the priorities of the other half were — probably food.) The Taliban denounced the poll as senseless and biased because it asked about a crisis when "none exists."

So is the way forward to put an 87-year-old former monarch on the throne and switch Afghanistan to autopilot? Hardly. The resolution of Afghanistan's problems only begins with new leadership. Foreign aid will play an important role — indeed already does — and the United States may lend a hand rebuilding the infrastructure it originally built in the 1950s. A demining effort will have to be undertaken, and Afghanistan my require a U.N. peacekeeping presence, although kharjian (outsider) troops on the ground may lead to clashes organized by opponents of change.

There are many competing interests in Afghanistan, and many wrongs to be avenged; but Zahir Shah has been removed from the last three decades of struggle. He has nothing to prove, and little to gain. The King would be a figurehead with limited powers — he would not be able to dominate the country any more than his predecessors have. What he brings to the process is respect, legitimacy, and the approval of the world community. He could preside over the establishment of a new constitution that recognizes Afghan tradition and uses the time-tested ideas of the enlightenment to allow local autonomy, establish power-sharing mechanisms, and institutionalize compromise. It would, in Madison's phrase, "pit ambition against ambition," and move Afghanistan from the world of Hobbes toward that of Locke.

Those who desire to reform Afghanistan should avoid the urge to seek a utopia of results. We should help the Afghans establish a balanced political process, but not try to impose values. An Afghan constitution, for example, explicitly protecting the right of sexual orientation, banning prayer in school, and enshrining "a woman's right to choose" is bound to fail disastrously.

That being said, it is also a mistake to write off the Afghans as a backward people in the grip of primitive traditions. Far from it. The problem in Afghanistan is not too much freedom but too little — not chaos, but the attempt to impose state order by force. Afghanistan has been a laboratory for radical experiments in social organization. First Daoud, a bureaucratic centralist, a classic World Bank-friendly autocrat; then the Communists, who experimented so vigorously even the Soviet Union was alarmed; and finally the Taliban, who have sought to extinguish what remains Afghan tradition and replace it with the "full imposition of the sharia of Mohammed." The traditional Afghan way of life, which can be summed up in the word Autonomy, has had to survive despite the impulses of others, quoting Burke, "to make men mere machines and instruments of political benevolence." If the 20th century taught anything, it is that utopian political schemes lead chiefly to tragedy and human suffering. Afghanistan was a casualty of that impulse.

The return of Zahir Shah would be much more than a gesture towards moderation and stability. It would be an acknowledgement of the mistakes of the past, a repudiation of the quest for the "prefect society," a rejection of the notion that the state is the sole and ultimate force for good, and a recognition that people can live together in harmony without centralized control of their daily lives, either by socialist planners or radical Muslim theocrats. In short, the king would serve as a rallying point, an honest broker, allowing the opposing factions to place their country above their bloody feuds. Zahir Shah is the only man who can give Afghanistan this opportunity for peace — and it would be up to the Afghans to take it.