Independent Afghanistan - An Idea That Started with the Pashtun Taliban & Exploited by Their British Masters

1. The Separation of Khorasan From Iran Was Essentially the Start of the Taliban Nation & Is a Taliban Concept Exploited by Foreign Powers.  


Mir Wais Hotaki ("Hotaki") was an ethnic Pashtun and the father of the Taliban nation. Hotaki separated the Province of Khorasan from Iran (Persia) in 1709 through a series of bloody terror campaigns, and founded the short-lived Hotaki dynasty. Hotaki's first act was to  de-Iranicize the land by eliminating Gurgin Khan, the well respected governor of Kandahar, who was an executive of Eastern Iran in the province of Khorasan. 


Eventually, Hotaki's actions set the stage for a successful Afghan invasion of Iran in 1722 by his son Mir Mahmud who took over after Mir Wais died of natural causes in 1715 at the age of 42. Unfortunately, Mir Mahmud's rule was characterized as being bloody and vicious (he often directed his men to kill children in remote villages instead of facing the Iranian army in direct combat); Mir Mahmud met an early death in 1725. Ashraf, Mahmud's cousin took over and continued a campaign that sought to eliminate the Persian language and Iranian cultural traditions.  


Soon after Nadir Shah Afshar (a formidable Iranian general) came to power in Iran and finally ended the short lived Hotaki dynasty in 1730. Neither Mir Mahmud or Ashraf had the necessary leadership skills and ability to unite the Afghan tribes like Mir Wais Hotaki had, and this experiment at independence was the starting point for centuries of suffering, poverty, and bloodshed in the land that is today known as Afghanistan. Mir Wais Hotaki never took on the tile of king or emperor, however today, the Taliban government of Afghanistan refer to him as Neeka, meaning Grandfather of the nation. Mir Wais Hotaki was born near Kandahar city in 1673.  


While the rest of Iran progressed as a developed nation the Hotaki quest for an independent Afghanistan was the earliest sign that the people there would plunge into centuries of suffering.  Most modern scholars appear to agree that an Afghanistan that is independent of Iran, or is de-Irancized, is prone to ethnic, economic, and military strife, and lacks the cohesiveness to function as a prosperous territory.  Fundamentally, there are two competing viable models for the modern governance of Afghanistan: one based on the Taliban model and the other on the historical Iranian model wherein Afghanistan was the Eastern province of Iran known as Khorasan.