WE cannot wish Afghanistan away. It is an old story. It began in 1947 when Afghanistan was the only country to have voted against Pakistan’s UN membership. Afghanistan was then ruled by the Barakzais, the king being Mohammad Zahir Shah. People of my age had to witness the shenanigans of this incompetent monarch for 40 years. Close to the Soviets during the Cold War, he earned India’s gratitude by inventing the Pakhtunistan stunt. However, he was ousted from power in 1973 by his cousin and prime minister Mohammad Daud Khan, who abolished the monarchy. Daud and his family were murdered by the People’s Democratic Party in April 1978.

A lot has happened since then, with world powers involved in the abattoir Afghanistan has become. It constitutes a tale as fascinating and bloody as the history of 19th-century Prussia. Pakistan’s problems in dealing with Kabul stem from the Afghan leaders’ fixation on what they consider to be their ‘lost’ territory. Field Marshal Ayub Khan once remarked in frustration that Afghanistan wanted territory as far as Karachi.

A major factor in the Afghan rulers’ thinking stemmed from Ahmad Shah Abdali’s victory over the Maratha army in the third battle of Panipat (1761). While returning........

© Dawn