The Once and Future King? - The National Security Archive - Edited by William Burr

FROM THE SECRET FILES ON KING ZAHIR'S REIGN IN AFGHANISTAN, 1970-1973 
Now living in exile outside of Rome, 87-year old  Zahir Shah reigned as king of Afghanistan from 1933 until July 1973, when his cousin, prince Mohammed Daoud Khan, seized power and proclaimed a republic.  Daoud was subsquently overthrown and killed in a 1978 military coup that produced a Soviet client state.  A year and a half later, in December 1979, Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan setting off a ten-year war.(1)  Throughout the Afghan conflict of the 1980s, proposals to revive the Zahir Shah regime figured in to discussions of a post-war political system.  Those discussions of the "Zahir Shah option" never went far, in part because of the opposition of religious fundamentalists and Islamists who had chafed under modernization reforms that took place during the king's reign.  Zahir Shah's contacts with the Indian government in 1988 also hurt his cause.(2)

Now, with a new war in Afghanistan in full swing, serious discussion of the Zahir option in a post-Taliban regime has been revived.  On 25 October, representatives of Pashtun ethnic/tribal groups from southern Afghanistan meeting in Pakistan called on King Zahir to work with them, "according to his moderate and balanced policy, to put an end to this crisis."   Born on 14 October 1914, the king has just turned 87, so his role will probably be a titular one, serving as a symbol of tradition and national unity.  Zahir has already forged an arrangement with the Northern Alliance, so he and his representatives may in fact be able to assemble a broad coalition.  Nevertheless, the current "Zahir Shah option" remains a difficult one, not least because of the factious nature of Afghanistan politics and society.(3)

One factor that has kept the "Zahir Shah option" alive over the years is the king's popularity among refugees, especially political moderates and the exiled elite.  A survey conducted in 1987 by Afghan scholar Sayed Bahuddin Majrooh's Afghan Information Center, based in Peshawar, Pakistan, found that 70 percent of Afghan refugees living in Pakistan favored the king's return.  Majrooh was assassinated in 1988, allegedly by an Islamist faction led by Gulbudin Hekmatyar, who strongly opposed a role for Zahir Shah.(4)

Whatever the political outlook for Zahir Shah may be, the fact that he was in power for so many years so long ago makes it possible to look at the closing years of his monarchy from the perspective of U.S. diplomats and White House officials through documents released at the National Archives under the U.S. government's historical declassification program.

Among the disclosures in the archival record:  Read More at The National Security Archive

The Once and Future King? - The National Security Archive

Document 6 - The National Security Archive

تلگرام سفیر امریکا رابرت نیومن درمورد مراجعه وحید عبدالله به ... - احمد فواد ارسلا