Wi: King Zahir Shah was not overthrown?

Before 1973, Afghanistan was a relatively moderate, modernized peaceful nation. There was poverty and tribal tensions, but compared to today, those problems were significantly downgraded in severity. King Zahir Shah was able to maintain neutrality in the Cold War. Women had full civil rights and they could vote in elections.

However, Zahir Shah's rule was not perfect. There were issues with the Pashtuns and there was a famine from 1971-72, which earned a somewhat poor response from Zahir Shah.

The aforementioned problems with the Pashtuns earned the ire of Daoud Khan, a Pashtun who once tossed around the idea of creating a Pashtun nation out of Afghan and Pakistani territory, a issue which created a diplomatic crisis with Pakistan, resulting in him resigning. Daoud Khan would later be banned from holding any further political positions by the 1964 edition of the Afghan Constitution.

In 1973, Daoud Khan would successfully overthrow his cousin and install a Communist republic. He further pushed the Pashtun agenda by encouraging cross-border raids into Pakistan, improved women's rights and put into motion two five-year-modernization-plans which increased the labour force by 50%

However, despite Khan's attempts to form relations with the West, particularly Saudi Arabia and Iran, the Soviets began to influence Afghanistan's government. As a result, factions began to form within the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan. This schism would result in the 1978 coup in which Khan was assassinated.

Unlike Khan, who while a socialist was able to maintain the loyalty of the Afghan people, the new Democratic Republic of Afghanistan effectively presented itself as a purely socialist, irreligious government. They prohibited usury and tried to institute a aggressive land reform program. This latter element would ignite a rebellion by the mujahedeen, which led to the endless destabilization of the country through the following Soviet invasion, the Afghan Civil War after the Soviet withdrawal, the rise of the Taliban and today, the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.

So, what if King Zahir Shah was never overthrown by his cousin and remained as King of Afghanistan for the foreseeable future?
 
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Definitely Afghanistan would be more peaceful nation altough it would has still several problems like poverty, tribalism and corruption.

Internationally there wouldn't be such terrorist problem and if Osama bin Laden still goes as terrorist and founds al-Qaeda it would be much weaker and there wouldn't be 9/11 and so not War of Terror. This too would mean no such problems in Middle East as in OTL.
 
Well, as stated earlier, if we have Afghanistan remaining a moderate monarchy, then there's no Soviet-Afghan War. That essentially takes the wind out of the modern jihadist movement. Jihadism still exists but it doesn't have the proving ground of Afghanistan to show what a small group of determined fighters can do against a global super power. Without the war Osama bin Laden wouldn't have become a jihadi financier in Afghanistan, which eventually led to his creation of Al Qaeda. Jihadism as we understand it wouldn't really exist without Afghanistan acting as an incubation chamber for it.
 
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King Zahir Shah was able to maintain neutrality in the Cold War.
Afghanistan was able to gain large amounts of aid–financial, infrastructure, agricultural etc.–by paying the Americans and the Soviets off against each other. Unfortunately part of it included sending students to foreign universities, coming back they were then dissatisfied with the gradual rate of reform and started agitating for faster changes, which up in turn clashed with attitudes of those from the more conservative rural areas and smaller towns.
 
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