The Poor Goat

Like a tortoise shell on Asia's back, Afghanistan lies athwart the spiny Hindu Kush mountains, sloping northward to the Oxus River and Russia, eastward to the Khyber Pass. Perhaps no land has been so trodden upon by history and yet kept its independence. Darius, Alexander, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Babur all invaded it. In the 19th century the British Empire, following a northwesterly course, approached the Hindu Kush and southward-marching Russians. In the end, Britain and the Czars, fearful of what might happen if their armies met, agreed to keep Afghanistan as a buffer state.

Chafed Afghanistan's Amir Abdur Rahman: "This poor goat, Afghanistan, is a victim at which a lion on one side and a terrible bear from the other side are staring and ready to swallow."

The lion has since gone away, but the bear has not. Left on its own, the goat has been dreaming dreams of grandeur.

Recalling Afghanistan's big moment in history, when the 18th century's Ahmad Shah made himself first King of the nomadic Afghan tribes and conquered all of northern India, Afghans still dream of spreading out once again. Last week Afghanistan's King Mohammed Zahir Shah rode solemnly through Kabul's dusty, unpaved streets to the Shora-e-Milli (House of Representatives). There he urged his acquiescent Parliament to support the revolts of the Pathan tribes across the border in Pakistan, who are flesh and blood of King Zahir's own royal family. The British, in their old boundary-drawing days, had once separated the fierce Pathans (or Pakhtoons) from Afghanistan. Since the British never subdued them, say Pathan agitators, Pakistan has no right to claim their lands as a legacy from the British. "Pakhtoonistan," King Zahir told his Parliament last week, "remains a basic demand of Afghanistan."

Talk with Molotov. All this puffing up by the goat would not much matter were it not for the "terrible bear" to the north. Three years ago, backward* Afghanistan would not have dared to make demands on bigger and well-armed Pakistan. At that time Afghanistan was governed by two of the King's pro-Western uncles. Then Daoud Shah, brother-in-law of the King, began to get ambitious. In Moscow for Stalin's funeral, Daoud talked to Molotov long and earnestly. Six months later, backed by army leaders, Daoud ousted the King's uncles, installed himself as Prime Minister and named his brother Nairn as Foreign Minister.

At Daoud's invitation, shoals of Russians arrived in Kabul with new offers of economic aid. Their plans contrasted with the U.S.'s aid program, which, at Afghan request, has been concentrated on building remote dams in the southern desert.

The Russians built highways, silos and oil-storage tanks--works which few Afghans could fail to note. Besides, said one Russian confidently, "the roads, gasoline and grain will be useful to our armies when they march."

Daoud also made friendly contact with the Pathan independence leader in West Pakistan, frail, bearded, lumbago-plagued Mirza Ali, also known as the Fakir of Ipi. The Fakir of Ipi's impetuous followers, who love their girls second only to their guns and woo them with a ditty which begins, "Your eyes are two loaded pistols," thereupon increased their pressure on the Karachi government. By now, Prime Minister Daoud, expanding his notion of Pakhtoonistan to include more than half of West Pakistan, was demanding all the territory west of the Indus River, right down to the Arabian Sea.

Stewed Fruit. Irked by this Pakhtoon-foolery, Pakistan last week effectively closed the historic Khyber Pass, through which passes 80% of Afghanistan's external trade, including shipments to the U.S. of pistachio nuts, wool, and karakul fur (which becomes "Persian lamb" on Manhattan's Seventh Avenue). At the pass, Pakistani customs stopped grape, peach and pomegranate-laden trucks and told them to await clearance from Karachi--which, they blandly confided, would "take some time." While the truckers fretted, the fruit rotted.

At this point, another country got into the act. India, which has its own grievances against Pakistan, prepared to set up an airlift from Amritsar over the Khyber Pass to Kabul. The ambitious Afghans were grateful, but even more gratified by a handsome offer from the Russians: a five-year transit guarantee for their goods. Glowed Afghanistan's Foreign Minister Naim: "If one door is slammed shut and another is opened, we will go through it." After 100 years, the Russian bear's long vigil on the Oxus was beginning to pay off.

* Afghanistan's 12 million people, in a country the size of Texas, have no railroads, no free press, no labor unions, no political parties, two movie theaters. Only 5% of the nation's land is cultivated.

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