Uncertainty Awaits Exiled Former King in Kabul

Mohammed Zahir Shah, Afghanistan's exiled former king, will return to Kabul on April 18 to a rapturous welcome by millions of Afghans hungry for peace and stability. His return will dramatically speed up the process by which Afghans seek to form a new, more representative government by June, beginning with a grand tribal council called a Loya Jirga. But Zahir Shah's arrival will not simply provoke celebration. It will also expose longstanding ethnic divisions in the country, potentially arousing partisan passions as warlords lobby for support before the Loya Jirga.

The king is returning to a divided land. Officials have twice delayed his return due to fears about his safety. Throughout the country, the security situation remains precarious. Remnants of the deposed Taliban militia and holdout al Qaeda loyalists recently fired on US troops in eastern and southern Afghanistan, troops of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul have been engaged in firefights with local renegades, and allied troops launched a major campaign on April 16.

Roughly 600 British commandos have joined American Special Forces in Operation Ptarmigan, an offensive designed to flush out al Qaeda warriors who are still hiding in three eastern provinces bordering Pakistan. This tenuous security situation indicates that Hamid Karzai's interim government does not yet have control over large parts of the country, which will further complicate any message of unification the king might try to deliver. [For background information, see the Eurasia Insight archive].

He will return to a royal treatment. ISAF will provide external security for the king's newly furnished house and compound in central Kabul, while it has already trained 100 Afghan bodyguards to guard him wherever he goes. Tens of thousands of tribesmen from around the country will travel to Kabul to pay their respects to the 87-year-old former monarch. As this courtliness indicates, most Afghans see Zahir Shah's return as a decisive step toward remaking Afghanistan into a normal, stable country. Although the majority of citizens don't directly remember his rule, which ended in a 1973 coup by his cousin Mohammed Daud, collective memory reveres his 40-year rule as the longest period of peace in the country.

Zahir Shah's mission will be to foster a new democratic government. His most important task will be to open the Loya Jirga in June and give it the stamp of legitimacy; the Jirga will proceed to elect a new transitional government, with two years and a broad political base. The king's supporters are keen that the Jirga elect him as head of state, while Karzai remains as head of government. But this solution will not wash with several powerful factions - which explains why royalists are so eager for the king to insert his charisma into the process.

That charisma will have to navigate around groups with deep-set positions. The first are the Panjsheri Tajiks, who control the army and several key ministries in Kabul. Their assassinated leader, Ahmad Shah Massoud, put aside years of dislike for the king in 2001, reaching out to him in Rome in a bid to forge a broad-based alliance against the Taliban. Massoud made this gesture while international powers were effectively ignoring Afghanistan. But his successors, especially Defense Minister General Mohammed Fahim, firmly reject a role for the king and more acutely oppose any future political role for his immediate relatives. The Panjsheris would like to restrict Zahir Shah to a largely ceremonial role.

In the west, influential warlord Ismail Khan has warned the king's supporters not to push the idea of a monarchy. "As an Afghan he can stay in Afghanistan, but we do not need any kingdom system in Afghanistan," Khan told Reuters in Herat on April 15. Anti-royalist convictions can forge surprising alliances. To block the former king from entering the government, Ismail Khan is likely to link up with former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, a Tajik and an Islamic hardliner, and with Pashtun tribesmen sympathetic to the Taliban.

Karzai, himself a Pashtun, is meanwhile hoping that Zahir Shah will cement another alliance. He is counting on the former king - who is a Pashtun from the Mohammedzai tribe in Kandahar - first and foremost to mobilize support from the Pashtuns for the interim government and the Loya Jirga. Such support would strengthen Pashtuns' role in a government that currently features a disproportionate share of Panjsheris.

Pashtuns, who constitute 40 percent of the population in southern and eastern Afghanistan, are at present bitterly divided. Al Qaida and the Taliban continue to exert influence amongst them, the Americans continue to arm and fund Pashtun warlords, while deep-seated tribal and clan rivalries prevent a common political stance. Karzai hopes that the king can break the spell of Arab and American foreign influence and unite the tribe to seek stability. "Zahir Shah must travel to Kandahar and convince the Pashtuns that they should support Karzai, support moderate politics and help create a proper government instead of fighting amongst themselves," says a senior aide to Karzai in Kabul.

Machinations in the north can help the king forge a common Pashtun position. Northern warlords, belonging to the minority Uzbek, Turkmen and Hazara ethnic groups, also deeply mistrust the Panjsheri power imbalance in Kabul. They will joyfully welcome the king as a counterweight to the Tajiks. Sources in Kabul say Karzai and the king will try to forge an alliance between moderate Pashtun chiefs and these minority ethnic groups in order to strengthen Karzai's position before the Loya Jirga. Senior Western diplomats in Kabul say they have urged the king "to lay his hand on Karzai and give him his blessing." Diplomats say the United States also supports the continuation of Karzai as head of government after June.

The king himself professes no political ambitions - "he is coming home to die, that is what he keeps telling us," says a close confidante of the king in Rome. But his supporters will probably try and persuade him to play politician once again. If they succeed, Panjsheris and other anti-monarchists could well react in unpredictable ways. The next few weeks in Kabul will be both tense and joyful as all the major political players watch the elderly former king for signals. Despite the mistrust crisscrossing the country, most Afghans look at Zahir Shah as their country's best hope to end warlordism and herald a period of peace.