What Afghanistan Taught Us — And Why Libya May Be Lost If the Lesson Is Ignored |
When Afghanistan’s Emergency Loya Jirga met in June 2002 to decide the country’s political future, most of the 1,500 delegates were prepared to vote for the restoration of the constitutional monarchy under former King Mohammed Zahir Shah. They saw the monarchy as the only institution capable of bringing together Afghanistan’s diverse regions and political groups. Yet the vote never happened. According to contemporaneous reporting from United Press International, citing British officials and Western diplomats in Kabul, U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and his colleagues spent the night pressuring the 87-year-old monarch. The king, UPI reported, was kept awake until three in the morning. He was warned that if he refused to withdraw his candidacy, “the government, and perhaps even the country, would split and collapse.”
The next morning, Zahir Shah’s withdrawal was announced before delegates could vote. A senior UN official reportedly remarked on the way into the tent, “We’ve finally bought the election. Let’s hope they don’t raise the price later.”
This decision shaped the entire Afghan transition. By removing the one institution most Afghans recognized as legitimate, the international community left the country without a constitutional foundation. A new political system was assembled quickly, driven by external models rather than Afghan political culture. Elections were prioritized before institutions had been anchored. Once foreign support receded, the system collapsed with remarkable speed.
The relevance to Libya is difficult to overlook. Fourteen years........