Games without Rules: The Often Interrupted History of Afghanistan

by Mir Tamim Ansary

Dost Mohammed himself tipped the scales. When he heard nothing back from the British, he met with Vitkevich again. Well, that did it! Auckland decided to go with what he called the Forward Policy. Instead of just sitting back and waiting to see what happened, he would move into Afghanistan and make things happen. He issued the Simla Manifesto, a public statement announcing that “every consideration of policy and justice” led the governor general to “espousing the cause of Shah Shuja-ul-Mulk” and aiding “the restoration of the Shah to the throne of his ancestors . . . [by which] it may reasonably be hoped that the general freedom and security of commerce [and] the union and prosperity of the Afghan people” would be promoted.”10 The Simla Manifesto made a claim that would become grindingly familiar over the next 170 years: the British were not out to conquer Afghans but to see “the independence and integrity of Afghanistan established.” Once this job was done, the British would withdraw.