A Return to Monarchy Could Solve the Afghan Conflict - Foreign Policy Journal

A monarchical system of government may sound regressive to Westerners, but Afghanistan once thrived under monarchy, and the existing Western-imposed government is destined to fail.
Something must change in Afghanistan. The status quo will never do.


On April 30 two bombings in Kabul killed at least 25 persons, including nine journalists – the deadliest single attack involving journalists in Afghanistan since at least 2002, and one of the most lethal. This came as Afghan president Ashraf Ghani offered an unconditional peace plan to end the war. The Taliban then announced their spring offensive. There seems no hope for peace.

President Trump’s strategy to address the conflict in Afghanistan has been a moving target since his first days in office. First, he disparaged the idea of “nation-building.” Then he vowed to increase the number of troops in Afghanistan. More recently, he seems to have shifted to favoring a political solution, as signaled by remarks from U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis during a surprise visit to Kabul in March.

“We do look toward a victory in Afghanistan,” Mattis said. “Not a military victory—the victory will be a political reconciliation” between the Taliban and the Afghan government.

Yet there’s no reason to believe any reconciliation forged within the current political system will bring lasting peace.

The hostilities in Afghanistan can never be solved without a full reckoning with the country’s tribal culture and ethnic dynamics. Fierce, competing internal forces exacerbate conflicts in a region that has been plagued by foreign invaders for centuries. Neither a blizzard of bombs nor peace with the Taliban will lift the country out of its violent quagmire. Disparate factions continually weaken central government, and that doesn’t figure to change even if the Taliban is given a seat at the table.

But there is another option. As a native of Afghanistan who has worked for the past 10 years as an interpreter for NATO forces, I believe the country needs a complete overhaul of its political system and the re-establishment of a constitutional monarchy.

Why monarchy?

To Americans, the idea of monarchy may seem regressive. But Afghanistan is a country where monarchy has been shown to work. It was not so long ago—during the reign of Mohammad Zahir Shah, from 1933 to 1973—that a king presided over a period of striking political and social stability.

During the Shah’s four-decade reign, the pace of social and political reform in Afghanistan accelerated. In 1964, the adoption of a new constitution for the first time recognized women’s equal rights and allowed them access to education in a society long dominated by men.

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. “Are you are kidding me?” they say, because their only experience is an Afghanistan torn by war, suicide bombings and never-ending suffering.

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. Daud Khan ruled as president until his assassination in 1978, after which the country sunk into a bloody war. The young pro-Soviet officers who overthrew Daud Khan faced stiff resistance from a religious and tribal establishment.

Later, 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, the former king 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 2001 BBC reported that about 10,000 people gathered in a football ground to hear speakers call for moderate Afghans to decide their own future by calling for Afghan tribal gathering, a Loya Jirga, under the former king’s supervision.

At the same time, I was a freelance journalist, and traveled to Rome to interview the Shah, who was in exile there. 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. - Read More

A Return to Monarchy Could Solve the Afghan Conflict

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