Afghanistan Needs a King

Afghanistan Needs a Ceremonial King By Wahab Raofi A constitutional monarchy could unite the multi-ethnic Afghans. It’s the best alternative to the Taliban and the National Front Resistance (NRF). Any other political arrangement that lacks the support of the country’s ethnic groups will only stoke the conflict and allow Afghanistan to become a haven for international terrorism. A major component of the never-ending Afghan conflict is the ongoing ethnic rivalry and monopoly of power at the hands of Taliban (mainly Pashtun tribes). They have excluded other groups including the Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek. Non-Pashtuns feel disfranchised and accuse the Taliban of imposing their hegemony on others in the name of Islam and demand a non-centralized government and local autonomy. When the Taliban took over in August 2021 and former President Ashraf Ghani fled, the makeshift order that had been forged in the 20 years prior collapsed. The system shattered because the political arrangement was not built on the socio-political dynamic that has emerged from the post-Soviet invasion of the 1980s and the ensuing civil war. Rather, it was built on the debris of previously failed governments. Today, a year after the Taliban seized power, the Afghani government is failing at home and abroad. Afghanis are suffering under extreme poverty and oppression; women are subject to strict rules handed out by the Ministry of Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, and are forbidden to work in offices among a myriad of other stringent rules. Girls are locked out of schools after the sixth grade. As a result, Afghans are fleeing the country in large numbers. According to an Aug. 19 report by the UN Mission in Afghanistan, the Taliban bears responsibility for the erosion of basic human rights there, and is responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrests, and detentions. Over the past 12 months the Taliban also has declared war on non-Pashtuns in Hazara in central Afghanistan, causing mass internal dislocation and suffering. While the majority of Pashtuns in the South and East of the country support the Taliban, the Tajik and Uzbek are joining Al Qaeda and Daesh (ISIS) to fight the influence of the Taliban in the northern part of Afghanistan. The good news is that no country has officially recognized the Taliban regime, and the world’s collective response has been to send humanitarian aid to Afghan’s citizens. Nonetheless, the world remains confounded by the Taliban’s destructive behavior and its staunch refusal to honor basic international norms. It has refused to uphold the 2020 Doha Agreement the former government signed with the United States — an agreement promising to honor international agreements, human rights, freedom of speech, transfer of power through free and fair elections, and to sever ties with Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. However, the US killing of al Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahiri in Kabul in a drone strike on Aug. 2 clearly shows the Taliban’s duplicitous behavior. At this point the United States and the rest of the world has two choices: deal with the Taliban without officially recognizing them or support any anti-Taliban resistance forces. These are tough choices, but leaders must make both bold and smart decisions, and that requires not just overthrowing the Taliban, but tackling the root cause of the conflict and working with the Afghan people to establish a government that mirrors all its ethnic groups. Afghanistan is still struggling with its political structures that were established by the Constitution of Afghanistan and adopted in 2004, which places enormous responsibility on the president by having him preside over all three branches of government as well as appoint governors to all 34 provinces, along with deputy governors, mayors, and chiefs of police. In addition, expenses and procurements in every province must bear the president’s signature. As a result, the economy came to a grinding halt. This is in direct contrast to its 1964 constitution where the country was ruled by a constitutional monarchy and power was divided amongst different branches of government. Afghanistan has experimented with many political systems, and the country has become a graveyard for every one of them because they were all built around a centralized government. In an April 202 op-ed for the New York Times, Ahmad Massoud noted, “For a lasting peace and just political order to be established in Afghanistan, significant structural changes need to be made to our highly centralized political and administrative system that concentrates power and financial resources in the office of the president with little accountability. The lack of an institutional power-sharing arrangement between Kabul and the provinces, and the winner-takes-all system in the central government, drive a zealous competition for the presidency.” While it may seem regressive to American, the idea of a monarchy in Afghanistan makes sense. Indeed, it has worked in that country, during the reign of King Mohammad Zahir Shah, from 1933 to 1973. During his four-decade reign, the pace of social and political reform in Afghanistan accelerated. In 1964, the adoption of a new constitution recognized women’s equal rights for the very first time, and allowed them access to education. When I share with American friends photographs of life in 1960s Kabul—a cosmopolitan city where men and women dressed in Western attire, worked, and attended school and university together—they shake their heads in disbelief. The roots of Afghanistan’s present-day troubles go back to 1973, when the Shah was overthrown in a bloodless coup by his cousin Mohammed Daud Khan, who was seeking to avenge his dismissal as prime minister. Khan ruled until his assassination in 1978, after which the country sunk into a bloody war. The young pro-Soviet officers who overthrew Khan faced stiff resistance from a religious and tribal establishment. Afghanistan evolved into a democratic republic ruled by communists who promised land reform, free housing, and education and economic prosperity, but failed to deliver. Instead, they eradicated their opponents with a campaign of terrorism and imprisonment, which was followed by an invasion of Soviet forces to support their clients in Kabul. Soon Afghanistan was roiling in blood as the US-backed Mujahedeen and other groups vied for political power. The result was a breakdown of law and order and hundreds of thousands of deaths. In 1996, the Taliban eventually seized control and Afghans embraced these fighters who promised they would restore much-needed law and order. Citizens believed that the rise of the Taliban would clear the path for a return of King Zahir because they knew Zahir enjoyed broad support among Afghans, and because the Taliban were mainly Pashtun. In October 2001, when America was dropping bombs on Taliban targets, Afghans and the U.S. government were searching for a leader to fill the political vacuum that was certain to emerge after the Taliban’s fall. To many, Zahir looked like the best option. He was a symbol of moderation, and Afghans were tired of the Islamic regime and sharia law imposed by the Taliban. They enjoyed the distinct line between government and religion during the king’s four-decades reign. In October 2001, around 10,000 people gathered at a football stadium in Peshawar, Pakistan to hear speakers call for moderate Afghans to decide their own future by calling for an Afghan tribal gathering — a Loya Jirga — under the former king’s supervision. I was a freelance journalist at the time living in the United States and I traveled to Rome to interview the Shah. I encountered intellectuals, influential tribal leaders, and militia commanders from Afghanistan, along with foreign dignitaries, all of whom had flocked to Italy to express their support for the king’s return to head a revived constitutional monarchy. In December 2001, Germany hosted the Bonn Conference, where a group of Afghan delegates representing different ethnic groups (including the king’s own delegation, headed by Abdul Satar Syrat, a former justice minister) met to decide on the future of a post-Taliban Afghanistan. But two things went terribly wrong. First, the Taliban, who controlled most of the country, were excluded from participation. The Northern Alliance—a united front made up mostly of Tajiks that had helped the U.S. to overthrow the Taliban (which is comprised mostly of Pashtuns)—leveraged their military gains to usurp most government positions. The relatively few remaining positions were filled based on religious, regional, and tribal affiliations, which stoked resentment among Pashtuns, who felt disfranchised. Second, the king’s delegate, Syrat, was blocked from heading the provisional government pending the convening of a Loya Jirga. Instead, delegates chose Hamid Karzai, a relative unknown from the South. Later, Syrat told supporters at a meeting in San Diego that delegates had voted for him, but that because he was an Uzbek he was passed over in a secret deal between representatives of the Northern Alliance and Karzai, who is a Pashtun. Today, despite the help of tens of thousands of U.S. troops and billions of U.S. dollars, the Afghan government teeters on the brink of collapse. I believe a return to a monarchy with a Pashtun king would be welcomed by Afghanistan’s multi-ethnic tribes. The 2014 election between Ashraf Ghani, who had the support of Pashtuns, and Abdullah Abdullah, favored by the Tajiks, ended in deadlock, with each side claiming victory. Government affairs were brought to a halt for nearly a year. This was a perfect example of how democratic elections modeled on those in Western countries simply cannot work in Afghanistan, where political battles incite long-standing ethnic tensions. Re-establishing a constitutional monarchy—with the right king in place—could unify Afghanistan by bridging connections across ethnic, religious, and tribal lines, which in turn would help quell the current spiral of violence. It worked for 40 years under King Zahir. Disparate tribes and provinces embraced his fair and gentle rule. It could work again.