What if General Massoud Lead Afghanistan

What if instead of getting assassinated on September 9, 2001, what if General Massoud had lived. Would he have been put in charge of Afghanistan instead of Karzai?

If so would he lead the country into a successful democracy, or would he become authoritarian?

Would he have unified the country better or worse than Karzai?

And finally, how would the War in Afghanistan have developed. Presuming that the US troop levels stay the same as OTL, would have greater appeal/competency and therefore defeat the Taliban?
 

The Poarter

Banned
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I personally see that Massoud would have done the following:

1. Maintained a secular, Authoritarian rule of the country for ten years. This would allow for stability while he worked out the tribal issues and infrastructure problems that plagued Afghanistan.

2. Once the Arab Spring, kicked in he would slowly release power back to the Afghani people over a period of five years so that they get used to democracy, after a written constitution and secular government has been properly created.
 
Hell if we still have General Massoud in the North is there a chance that he could with his recognition push for a return of the last King of Afghanistan as well as a way to appease the Pushtun south?

After all from everything that I've read General Massoud appears to be one of the more intelligent actors within Afghanistan at the time.
 
An obvious problem Massoud and the Northern Alliance would have: he was an ethnic Tajik (so, largely, was the Alliance, though it did get some support from Hazara and other groups) in a country where Pashtuns were the largest single ethnic group.
 
I wonder how much of positive image he has is based on his death right before Taliban were overthrown. Would he make a good leader? Might, might not. as other pointed out, there was an issue of his ethnicity. And the fact that there is no guarantee good war leaders ake good peace leaders.
 
I wonder how much of positive image he has is based on his death right before Taliban were overthrown. Would he make a good leader? Might, might not. as other pointed out, there was an issue of his ethnicity. And the fact that there is no guarantee good war leaders ake good peace leaders.

Thanks for the replies guys. I needed this information for the TL I had started.
 
An obvious problem Massoud and the Northern Alliance would have: he was an ethnic Tajik (so, largely, was the Alliance, though it did get some support from Hazara and other groups) in a country where Pashtuns were the largest single ethnic group.

Quite.

It's why the US didn't push them to form a National Government.

Could they have put together a coalition with some Pashtun groups and had a troika or junta running the place? Maybe. But there didn't seem to be anyone appropriate.
 
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