In close quarters with friends I will occasionally quip that the solution to the current unpleasantness in Afghanistan to create the country that always should have been--Pashtunistan.

Pashtunistan would run from the plains of Afghanistan, over the Duarnd line to the plains west of the Indus.  This would be the tribal areas of Pakistan the mountain regions of Afghanistan populated by the Pathan tribes.

In my not so serious statement, I suggest Afghanistan, Pakistan and the NATO countries multi-laterally declare the new state and promptly declare war on it.  Preferrably at the same press conference.

Quite the joke, eh?

Except at least one smart person has a serious variant on it.

In today's Washington Post, Robert Kagan poses the variant on my Pashtunistan scenario writing, "Have the international community declare that parts of Pakistan have become ungovernable and a menace to international security. Establish an international force to work with the Pakistanis to root out terrorist camps in Kashmir as well as in the tribal areas."

The idea of Pashtunistan is nothing new.  Since the partition of India into Pakistan there has been an effort to formalize Pashtunistan.  The effort has waxed and waned over the decades, but maybe its time has come.

Afghanistan is not a country, it is an amalgamation whose borders were drawn by Russia, Iran (Persia) and Britain.  Historically to be an Afghan meant to be a Pathan, a Pashtun to the extent that in the 1964 constitutional Loya Jirgah, it had to be clarified that being an Afghan meant being a person native to the borders of Afghanistan. Throughout the history of Afghanistan, no leader ever really, and definately no foreign force, subdued and controlled the Pathan tribes of the mountains and hill country on either side of Durand line.

Most invaders by-passed the region on their way to or from India.

The Pathan areas have always been a law unto themselves following the Pashtunwali, the code of the Pathans and their own clan and tribal governance.

The difficult part of the recent battles in Afghanistan are what they have been for every foreign invader or Afghan Shah--the Pathans of the hills and mountains.  Western Afghanistan is rarely a problem.

My solution, often spoken in jest, is actually based on what has happened in the region for mellenia.  Mujahideen fighting the Soviets used the tribal areas of Pakistan as a rear base much as the Taliban do now.  The British, while at times able to hold the plains in the 19th century, never controlled the hills, let alone the mountains. None of the great classical empires Persian or Greek controlled the mountains.

You can fight your way through the mountains, you can hold a mountain pass for logistical purposes or even buy off a tribe that has lived in the cliffs above a pass for centuries--but no one has controlled the whole of Pashtunistan.  The partition only exacerbates the problem as there are rear areas on either side of the Durand line.  If Pakistan gets serious, go west, if NATO and Afghanistan gets serious, go east.

But even this over simplifies the problem because the Pathan hillmen are not the problem per se.  It is their guests who use the mountains as a staging area and safe harbour for a war against civilization who are the problem.

The true solution lies in the answer to this question--how do we convince the Pathans to turn over their guests?
They key to the solution--if there is one--lies in the mellenia old Pashtunwali, the code of the Pathans.  Crack the code, and you will be able to crack the Pathans.

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