BLIGHTED as this nation is, it should count its blessings (however few they be). At the dawning of each day we awake and yawn, the sun rises, and with it comes sunshine. We are fortunate, at this particular moment in time, not to be led by either of the two 'cartoon figures' who dominated the nineties.

We are fortunate now to be led by a man who can differentiate between tactics and strategy. Pervez Musharraf is strong, for he is able to admit how weak is his nation, how it cannot take on the whole wide world.

We are fortunate that Big Chief Bush has sound advisers who have been able to persuade him that a multi-billion dollar missile, if directed towards Afghanistan, on landing is likely to merely demolish a tattered tent, with perhaps its peasant owner and his donkey tethered outside. Bush is fully aware that his government and its men brought in Osama bin Laden and with him his Al-Qaeda, both of which they now wish to demolish.

The world may not need to realize the fact, but we must realize that we will always have Afghanistan on our north-west frontier.

The world is now at war with the present rulers of that country and is using science to fight ignorance.

How many of Bush's advisers and the advisers of his partners in the alliance which wishes to instal a 'friendly' regime to replace the extremely unfriendly Taliban take into account that there are sixteen ethnic groups from which they will have to form and mould and then nurture the succeeding regime?

The alliance partners will have to deal with Afghans, Tajiks, Pamir Tajiks, Balochs, Berberi Hazaras, Deh-i-Zainat Hazaras, Jamshedis, Firuz Kuhis, Taimanis, Taimuris, Nuristanis, Uzbeks, Turkumans, Kyrghyzis, Karakalpaks, and lastly Arabs.

To understand Afghanistan, George W Bush can talk to two scholars inherited by America, Vartan Gregorian and Farang Mehr.

Farang Mehr, my friend, was born in Tehran of a Zarathushti family from Yazd. He started out in oil and insurance, was appointed deputy prime minister of Iran in Amir Abbas Hoveida's time. When he tired of politics he was appointed Chancellor of the University of Shiraz.

When Imam Khomeni and his revolution arrived he fled Iran, went to the States, and is now Professor Emeritus of International Relations at the Boston University. Farang was and is very aware of the Persian saying, 'It is easy to become a mullah, but hard to be a human being.'

His biography 'Triumph Over Discrimination' has been written by Lylah Alphonse and was published in the year 2000.

He is a master on the twists and turns of the Iranian and Afghan thought process.

He could prove very valuable on the 'psychological warfare' side of the present operation.

Gregorian, who I have had the pleasure of knowing, is an Armenian born in Tabriz, Iran, who earned his degree in history and humanities from Stanford, and has taught European and Middle Eastern history at many colleges and universities in the States. I first met him when he was president of the New York Public Library, a position he held from 1981 to 1989.

He moved on to become president of Brown University, and later president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which position he still holds. He is the author of 'The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan , Politics of Reform and Modernization from 1880-1946' (published 1969).

Just scanning through the headings of the fourteen chapters of Vartan's book gives one a good idea of Afghan history: The difficult legacy divisive forces: ethnic diversity, sectarianism, and social organization; Afghanistan in decline: the reforms of Dost Mohammad and Sher Ali; European imperialism and the Anglo-Afghan wars; Abdul Rahman Khan: from anarchy to absolute monarchy; Mahmud Tarzi and 'Siraj al Akhbar'; Habibullah Khan: the quest for absolutism and modernism; The rise of Afghan nationalism; Amanullah Khan, ill-fated champion of modernization; Bacha-i-Saqao, the Bandit Amir; Nadir Shah: from anarchy to selective modernization; Nadir Shah: foreign policy; Hashim Khan: nationalism and gradualism; Hashim Khan: foreign policy.

The wild Bacha-i-Saqao's hold on the throne lasted from January 17 to October 13, 1929, during which time political anarchy was rampant and the economy severely dislocated. He attacked Amanullah's 'sacrilegious and impious acts' and promised his people a complete return to the principles of the Quran and the Shariat law, the re-establishment of ancient customs regarding the status of women (he believed in going backwards), and the function of education as he knew it.

He halted Amanullah's progressive measures; all the modern schools were closed, female students were recalled from Turkey, foreign advizors were forced to leave Kabul, and polygamy laws were reinstated. Laboratories, libraries, palaces and the Royal Museum in Kabul were all sacked. (The Kabul museum has been sacked many times since).

Gregorian has quoted from the Afghan historian Muhammad Ali: "Rare books and articles of value were either destroyed, burnt or sold at ridiculous prices. For one Kran down, one could buy as many books as one could carry on one's shoulders . . . . confiscation of property, exile, or simple death were deemed uncommon instances of leniency. Most of the unfortunate victims were either blown up from the cannon's mouth or shot down; others were beaten, bastinadoed, impaled, bayoneted, or starved to death ... Bacha's chief victims were the officials of Amanullah Khan and wealthy merchants or influential or learned men..... He suspected the students most and regarded them as his secret enemies."

His destruction even extended to the felling of trees. He also dissolved the ministries of education and justice, "both of which were regarded as unnecessary and unwelcome infringements on the power of the religious establishment. The sole responsibility for the courts and schools reverted to the religious leadership."

Zahir Shah ascended the Afghan throne on November 8, 1933. He was born in Kabul and attended Habibia and Istiqlal and later, during his father's stay in France, several French lycees. Upon his return to Afghanistan, he graduated from the military school in Kabul. When aged eighteen his father appointed him minister of defence and the acting minister of education, "in order," writes Vartan, "that he might become familiar with the arts of government and the administration of the state."

The real power, it is said, lay in the hands of his three paternal uncles, Shah Mahmud Khan, Shah Wali Khan, and particularly Mohammad Hashim Khan, who as prime minister assumed complete control of the country's domestic and foreign policies."

Hashim attempted to convey to all that Islam was the religion of reform and progress and was not confined to literary and historical journals. He went so far as to maintain that "faith was a matter of individual conscience and heart and the intimate relationship between man and his Creator no man has a right to disturb."

He and his government also championed the right of Afghan girls to receive an appropriate education, for "....as future mothers they were responsible for the moral education of Afghan youth, and therefore their education was essential to the welfare of the Muslim community and the strength of Afghanistan ..... The major concern of Hashim's modernists was to reconcile Islam with modernization and to neutralize the opposition of the Muslim religious establishment." All these attempts to move forward and all the forward-looking policies died when Zahir Shah was forced to leave his country in 1973.

Of necessity grants and aid will now flow into Pakistan, and this is where Musharraf has to ensure that the men in power and position, be they in or out of uniform (many of whom are already rubbing their hands gleefully) are not struck with the predominant vice of corruption.

For each man of ours disbursing money or weapons or goods, there must be another man from the donor agency conjointly responsible for the disbursement. We will have to leave it to good fortune that neither of the two is able to corrupt the other.

We do not wish to be and we should not be a party to killing the poor Afghans, by now thoroughly exhausted, and sick and tired of the Taliban. Many Afghan children have been born in refugee camps and are now some ten years old. Their health and welfare has been ignored both by us and the West.

These camps, if in Afghan territory, must be regarded as war-free zones, and schools must be established in all the camps wherever situated so that the children's minds can be formed correctly and in tune with the 21st century. It takes ten years to form a child's mind and bigotry cannot be abolished without education. There is time. We are in for a long difficult haul.

Musharraf is performing a tightrope act, and walking a very slack rope. He must be supported - to employ that misused and abused term - in the national interest.