Twelfth in a series

The talk started inauspiciously. He limped into the room with one hand on a cane and the other arm in a sling. We compared orthopedic crises since our last meeting. He’d had five operations in 12 years; I a mere three. Ever the competitive Afghan, he said, “I’m ahead of you.” Pause … and then with equally Afghan wryness: “But don’t worry. You’ll get older, and you’ll have more.”

For Afghan royal family well-wishers, all roads still lead to Rome. I was there last week for another Afghanistan purpose, and postponed contacting the “palace” until my final day – too late to revisit ex-King Mohammed Zahir but in time for a chat with his oldest, closest confidante.

Disappointed? Far from it, at least in terms of substance. An American analogy springs to mind. Say you had your choice of access to our current president or vice president. You’d choose George W. Bush for the photo-op. Whom would you choose for strategy and vision?

Afghanistan’s Dick Cheney-in-exile has, like the king, been based in Italy for nearly three decades. I came last in 1989 at a time when the world had dismissed this family. “Insufficiently involved” was the verdict on Zahir Shah who had, indeed, sat out the anti-Soviet jihad. “Too old and senile.” This judgment was so pervasive, so pat – among would-be Afghan leaders, Pakistani intelligence officers, and American diplomats – that I was skeptical and wanted to see for myself.

The king and his chief counselor were, in fact, none of the above. Keenly concerned for their country, they had been frustrated in attempts to support the holy war 1) by the Pakistanis who instead backed their own puppets like the murderous Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and 2) by other Afghans who themselves behaved like The Men Who Would Be King.

And our U.S. makers of Afghanistan policy in 1989? As everyone now knows, our people were going along with whatever they were told by the Pakistanis and the would-be Afghan leaders. Unofficial but loyal American, I summarized my 1989 meeting with the royals in a three-page letter to the State Department’s officer then in charge of Afghanistan policy. Result: Not even the courtesy of a reply.

Now times have changed, for both better and worse. The bad parts have to do with millions more Afghans displaced or killed, with the menace of Osama bin Laden, and with another dozen years of age on the king and his adviser. The good part is that important Americans (as well as walk-on extras like myself) are finally, finally making their way to Rome.

A U.S. congressional delegation – complete with boondoggling spouses – had been there the previous day. “They wanted to know about democracy and women’s rights,” the old man said. “We told them that institutions must be based on values, and that respect has always been the central value of Afghan society. Respect for the people, respect for women. Now that respect must take the form of new rights.”

And what role for the aged king? “Again, it’s a matter of respect. In the West old people are institutionalized. Your beard,” he said to me, “is no longer dark as it was twelve years ago. Come to Afghanistan, and you will still be respected. His Majesty [a phrase the counselor always uses despite decades of intimate family relationship] is the grandfather of his country. He wishes nothing more. The people deserve nothing less.”

With me on this visit was the leader of Afghanistan’s effort to rid the country of an estimated 7 million landmines. This dedicated, energetic Afghan now asked for more public support from the royal family. “We praise, support, and encourage you,” the old man said, “but for now our encouragement must remain private.” The young man asked why.

“You know our expression,” age replied to youth, “which describes an experienced person. We call such a man Gorg-i-baaraan dida – the wolf who has seen the rain. I am an old wolf who has seen many rains. If I or His Majesty encourages your organization too openly, you will lose credibility among those who think of themselves as our enemies. Will they then allow you to work in regions under their control?”

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, please take note. The next time Hamid Karzai or some other American-supported Afghan needs rescue by U.S. chopper, do it – as you should have done in time to save Abdul Haq – but don’t say so. To acknowledge support so openly is to rob the man and his effort of independent legitimacy, to confer (at least in this still-early stage) a kiss of death. No wonder Karzai has denied that the rescue ever happened.

The talk turned briefly glum when I asked about ethnic tensions, an abiding source of conflict in Afghanistan. “I worry,” he said, “about the Yugoslavian model. The same disintegration could happen to us.” Then he recovered: “We must think of the different ethnic groups as a source of power, not weakness – like the different tributaries of a river which, once flowing together as a single current, can be tapped like a hydro-electric dam. Running the dam should be the role of government.”

Can the old wolf take his own ethnically inclusive advice? The indications from last week’s chat are mixed. It was Saturday, the day after Mazar-i-Sharif had been captured by the Northern Alliance – or, more precisely, by the Uzbek militia of General Rashid Dostum, champion side-switcher of the entire 23-year Afghan catastrophe. The only two constants of Dostum’s career: naked self-interest, and his solid ethnic base of Uzbek troops who, time and again, have wreaked havoc on ethnic Pushtuns. The Pushtun Taliban had wreaked havoc in return. The old wolf is a Pushtun.

“I spoke with Dostum by phone this morning,” he remarked, off the cuff. “I told him to be good to the people, all the people. No reprisals.” Wow: The Pushtun royal family already on the phone with Mazar’s newly re-installed Uzbek warlord? On the face of it, great news. Regrettably, I was too startled to ask what Dostum had replied.

Less hopeful were small clues to the old wolf’s own sense of identity. Significantly and fortunately for Afghanistan, his royal family – the Musahiban Pushtuns – became Persianized in the past century and thus appeal to both sides of the country’s main ethnic watershed. Now, however, I sensed that age was generating a desire for deeper roots. “I’m a Pushtun,” he said, more than once, and towards the end: “Don’t worry about post-Taliban security. Pushtun lashgars (militias) from the South can take Kabul and control it in the same way that His Majesty’s father and my father organized things in 1929.”

In one sense, he’s probably correct: Only the Pushtuns themselves can root out Taliban hardliners (themselves Pushtuns) and Osama bin Laden. But – STOP PRESS – note what’s happened since our lupine conversation: With breakneck speed (after weeks of stalemate) the northern alliance has “stolen a march” and seems now to occupy Kabul.

Did the northern alliance (which faction?) betray assurances to the royal family by entering the capital? Will the Pushtun “lashgars” from the South march north, in tribal fashion, as they did in 1929? I doubt it … unless they’re commanded by Pakistani officers. Or will they rally (unwisely) round the increasingly desperate Taliban? The Pushtuns are the biggest group in Afghanistan. They need and deserve – let’s repeat it – need and deserve somewhere to go. Somewhere and somebody like the king.

All now rides on a political solution. Can diplomacy catch up with warfare? And can the royal family, so long and wrongly neglected, still play a part? I like to think so. Or at least dream so. Maybe I’m only dreaming.

Let’s hope that the royals aren’t too long in the tooth for one last, symbolic, but potentially crucial role … and that they (advised by the old wolf) can still transcend ethnicity.

Dr. Whitney Azoy, a cultural anthropologist and former U.S. diplomat in Kabul, has worked for 30 years with Afghanistan and the Muslim world.