a house divided, 1933–73Gau Sowar, or Cow Rider, a well-known Shi‘a religious leader, the rebels
briefly overran a provincial centre, killed government officials and looted
the armoury. When the revolt was finally put down Ibrahim Beg was
exiled to the remote district of Balkhab, but the government repealed the
unpopular tax. 19
The Premiership of Shah Mahmud KhanIn 1946 Hashim Khan, who was suffering from testicular or prostate cancer,
stepped down and was succeeded as prime minister and regent by his
younger brother, Shah Mahmud Khan. Shah Mahmud was more liberal
in his views and his cabinet had a decidedly Leftist and Reformist leaning,
with Sardar Da’ud as Minister of Defence and Sardar Na‘im, his brother,
appointed as ambassador to the United States of America. Shah Mahmud’s
Foreign Minister, ‘Ali Muhammad, was a Tajik who had served under Amir
’Aman Allah Khan, while Zabuli retained his post as Minister of National
Economy. Muhammad Gul Khan Mohmand lost his cabinet post, while
Nur al-Mashayekh’s stranglehold over the justice system was broken. Shah
Wali Khan too returned to Kabul but in 1947, following a quarrel with
Da’ud, he was sent as Afghan envoy to the newly created state of Pakistan.
Two years later, Shah Wali was sent back to London.
u.s.-Afghanistan relations and the Helmand Valley
Irrigation SchemeAfghanistan’s geopolitical situation became even more precarious after
February 1947 when Britain announced it was to quit India and Lord
Mountbatten made his subsequent declaration of Partition and the estab-
lishment of Pakistan. The British withdrawal caused great alarm in Kabul.
For despite the government’s anti-British rhetoric and the country twice
being invaded by British forces, Britain had restrained Russian territorial
ambitions for a century. Britain had also propped up the dynasty through
subsidies and armaments, demarcated Afghanistan’s international fron-
tiers and provided the government with international legitimacy. British
withdrawal from India would leave no adjacent regional European power
capable of counteracting the threat to Afghanistan posed by the ussr.
Shah Mahmud’s solution was to turn to the new Western superpower,
the United States of America, but in so doing Afghanistan inadvertently
became sucked into the Cold War. The Second World War had worked in
Afghanistan’s favour as far as relations with the usa were concerned. In