What if Ahmad Shah Massoud lived?

[Lief 🗽]

On Sept. 2, 2001, nine days before 9/11, Ahmad Shah Massoud, the leader of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, was assassinated. If he had lived or the assassination attempt had not happened, would the war in Afghanistan gone differently? Would the reconstruction have gone differently?

[Colin]

Oddly I think it would have turned out worse. As an ethnic Tajik he could not have held as much sway over Pashtun tribes as Hamid Karzai has, even though that seems to be breaking as of now. I think the elevation of a Tajik to the Presidency surrounded by other Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras who made up most of the government and the Northern Alliance would have alienated southern Pashtuns and driven further divisions between the ethnic groups within Afghanistan.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

So we have an afghanistan in a state of outright yugoslavia type civil war?

[Boris]

Oddly I think it would have turned out worse. As an ethnic Tajik he could not have held as much sway over Pashtun tribes as Hamid Karzai has, even though that seems to be breaking as of now. I think the elevation of a Tajik to the Presidency surrounded by other Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras who made up most of the government and the Northern Alliance would have alienated southern Pashtuns and driven further divisions between the ethnic groups within Afghanistan.

Is it a forgone conclusion that Massoud would've been elected President?

Btw, he was assassinated two days before 9/11, not nine. The timing was obviously hardly a coincidence.

[Colin]

Oddly I think it would have turned out worse. As an ethnic Tajik he could not have held as much sway over Pashtun tribes as Hamid Karzai has, even though that seems to be breaking as of now. I think the elevation of a Tajik to the Presidency surrounded by other Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras who made up most of the government and the Northern Alliance would have alienated southern Pashtuns and driven further divisions between the ethnic groups within Afghanistan.

Is it a forgone conclusion that Massoud would've been elected President?

Well it's not. I was just stating what was likely if he was elected President. Otherwise he probably would have ended up much like Dostum or Qanuni, a functionary within the government but he wouldn't have contributed very much to a divergent history.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Is it a forgone conclusion that Massoud would've been elected President?

No. For obvious (and not just ethnic actually) reasons he would have had little appeal south of his traditional strongholds.

[minionofmidas]

Oddly I think it would have turned out worse. As an ethnic Tajik he could not have held as much sway over Pashtun tribes as Hamid Karzai has, even though that seems to be breaking as of now. I think the elevation of a Tajik to the Presidency surrounded by other Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras who made up most of the government and the Northern Alliance would have alienated southern Pashtuns and driven further divisions between the ethnic groups within Afghanistan.

Is it a forgone conclusion that Massoud would've been elected President?

Well it's not. I was just stating what was likely if he was elected President. Otherwise he probably would have ended up much like Dostum or Qanuni, a functionary within the government but he wouldn't have contributed very much to a divergent history.

Except with more popularity in the North, and thence much more able to make problems for Karzai.