He is just two weeks short of his 87th birthday. He hasn't ruled for 28 years. But yet the world is beating a path to his door in an attempt to usher in a unified Afghanistan.
But who is Mohammed Zahir Shah, and why is he so crucial to peace in a country in the gun sights of the United States?
Zahir Shah's old age has been rudely interrupted by the roller coaster of events in the past few weeks, catapulting him onto the world stage for the first time since his monarchy was toppled in a coup led by his cousin Mohammed Daoud in 1973.
By that time, he had already ruled his country for 40 years, having assumed the throne aged 19 in November 1933, after his father, Nadir Shah, was assassinated.
Finding consensus among a motley group of guerrilla fighters, clansmen, exiled intellectuals and power hungry politicians in a country which has not known peace for nearly 30 years is a massive task for the frail king.
But few can know better the shifting alliances that have characterized his country's stuttering emergence into the modern world.
The United Nations, Washington and disparate groups of his own countrymen have identified the esteem in which the deposed king is still held as the one hope of finding a way through a political morass involving ethnic groups ranging from Pashtuns, Tajiks and Hazaras to Uzbeks, Aimaks and Turkmen.
"What will cement our people together is the people's respect and appreciation for the former king," says his special assistant and grandson, Mostapha Zahir.
"Constantly, for 27 years, whether president Daoud came to power, whether the communists came to power, whether the Mujahedeen came to power, the majority of ordinary Afghan people called for the return of his majesty."
Zahir Shah lives in secluded comfort in a leafy Rome suburb, his house now heavily guarded, and spares his time and energy for the countless delegations who daily negotiate the checkpoint at the end of his driveway.
This weekend, he has played host to hardened Afghan guerrilla commanders and slick US Congressmen alike, all coming to show their support for one thing: the king as figurehead of a united effort to install a post-Taliban democracy in Afghanistan.
"Zahir Shah is a supreme elder of elders, and even the respect with which Afghan people see him now should play a role in any transition," says Francesc Vendrell, UN special envoy to Afghanistan, who has first-hand knowledge of the ex-king's enduring popularity.
Zahir Shah has taken to the limelight rather reluctantly. Press interviews usually take the form of a written reply to faxed questions.
He told Newsweek recently he would convene an emergency Loya Jirga, or assembly of elders, inside his country as soon as possible, which would choose a leader for an interim period of around two years until elections are held.
The leader of the US Congressional delegation which met him Sunday was impressed.
"We think the king's plan is a well-thought-out one. He's not on some kind of an ego trip," said Republican Curt Weldon.
"He's saying he's available if the people of Afghanistan want him. And from what we're hearing, he's perhaps the only person that can bring the Afghan people together in a coordinated way to help us, not just solve the problem of Afghanistan, but rid the world of Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network."
Zahir Shah told Newsweek that the Northern Alliance, which controls about 10 percent of Afghanistan, was too small to be a viable force to take power.
"It is difficult with these small alliances to obtain a total victory in the country," he said. "We must create a broad-based alliance comprising all of the organized parties in order to form a strong and dedicated movement."
The former king said Arab, Pakistani and North African militants now fighting on the side of the Taliban should "have no place in Afghanistan” -- ROME (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
