The situation in Afghanistan, while disturbing, is not something unusual for Afghans. For this past quarter century, the country has been in continual turmoil, yet its problems seem more intractable than ever.
It wasn't always the case.
Its location at a crossroads of the world where the ancient silk routes traversed destined that it would embrace the many influences of its neighbours.
Iran to the west would spread its language and culture up towards Central Asia and Tajik traders from Tajikistan would settle in the northeast and as far west as Herat, which in character is something of a Persian city.
Turkmen and Uzbeks would cross the Amu Darya river and settle along the plains north of the Hindu Kush. The river would not entirely isolate them from the USSR; their brand of Islam would be more cultural than religious. They would also speak a Turkic language which would link them culturally with Turkey, from which help would come in their fight against Taliban fundamentalism.
The Hindu Kush, (in translation the Hindu killer), would separate the peoples of the Indian sub-continent from the north. In these mountain regions, known today as Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, live the Pashtuns of southern and eastern Afghanistan; it is the area that nourishes the Taliban. They speak Pashtu, the language of their brother Pathans across the border in Pakistan.
The Durand Line marks the frontier. It can be clearly seen from the Khyber Pass. But in this lawless frontier, untamed by neither Britain during the Raj nor Pakistan, it is porous to smugglers, tribesmen or Taliban who pass to and fro at will.
The Central Highlands, known as Hazarajat, is the homeland of the Hazaras. They are commonly believed to be the descendants of Genghis Khan and have the reputation of being fierce in battle.
Unlike the other Afghan ethnic groups who are mainstream Sunni Muslims, the Hazaras are Shi'ia muslims and are militarily supported by Iran. Their leader is Karim Kalili.
Until 1973 King Zahir Shah, himself of Persian descent, ruled over this patchwork of peoples.
As the surrounding countries stamped their mark on the ethnic kaleidoscope, the mountains and myriad valleys which make up 70 per cent of a country somewhat bigger than France would influence the nature of his governance.
Central authority was of necessity weak through poor roads and no rail system. Local issues were settled through a system of tribal chiefs in a clan hierarchy. Inter-tribal disputes were settled in this way, and if things were getting out of hand the king used the last stage of diplomacy: the army.
Neutral during the second World War, Afghanistan continued to stay non-aligned during the cold war but its close proximity to the USSR meant economics interests would bring them together.
This in turn brought investment, aid for road and infrastructure development and communist influences, as many students returned from technical and military courses in the USSR.
In 1973 while in Rome, the king was deposed by his cousin and brother-in-law Daoud, who declared a republic and himself as president. Various factions of the intelligentsia which had benefited from an expanded state education now began to organise politically into communist, nationalist, and Islamic parties.
By 1978 the dominant communist party, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, felt strong enough to seize power in a military coup in which Daoud was killed and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was born.
Its policies were to destroy state institutions and social structures built up over centuries.
On March 17th 1979 a revolt was triggered in Herat when the army's 17th division refused to quell a riot caused when the government announced a compulsory literacy policy for all women.
The whole division, complete with weapons, sided with the protesters and started a split in the army. At Christmas that year the Soviets invaded.
The Soviet-Afghan war was fought on ideological lines - fundamentalist Islam against secular atheistic communism.
The aim of the US was to make the Soviets "bleed." Pakistan saw the chance to influence events in Afghanistan by installing a fundamentalist Pushtun mujahedeen leader after the communist defeat.
Saudi Arabia financed the war dollar for dollar with the US as it was also interested in restoring Islam in Afghanistan and even exporting it into Central Asia. To this end Prince Faisal Al Turki, head of Saudi Intelligence, in co-operation with the American CIA and their Pakistani equivalent (ISI), introduced bin Laden and many other Islamic dissidents from across the Arab world into the jihad. Little would they guess they would now be hunting them down with massive air strikes. With the departure of the Soviets in 1989 and the fall of the Najibullah's communist government in 1992, there was a power vacuum. The country fell into civil war.
While the current three leaders of the Northern Alliance, President Rabbani's Tajiks, General Dostum's Uzbeks, Karim Kallili's Hazaras and Pakistan's backed Hekmatyar's Pushtuns battled for the control of Kabul, the rest of the country fell into lawlessness.
In 1994 the Mullahs (religious teachers) of Kandahar acted to restore order by disarming the brigand warlords in their area. With the Koran as their constitution and Pakistani assistance, they set out to evangelise and conquer Afghanistan.
In 1996 they drove the warring factions - which then became the Northern Alliance but allied only in a common loathing of the Taliban - out of Kabul and steadily conquered 90 per cent of Afghanistan by summer 1999.
Today we are again back to the 1992 scenario with more or less the same players. The Taliban defeat of the past week has set them back to almost their starting point in terms of territory.
The Taliban are far from finished and may move to a guerrilla strategy that could prolong the conflict for a long time, even if the US get bin Laden and his lieutenants.
According to a statement by Dr Abdullah Abdullah, its foreign minister, the Alliance sees no need for UN peacekeepers - only UN observers. He is probably correct in that it is better to let the Afghans sort this out for themselves with the UN as facilitators.
It is unlikely they will pursue the Taliban into their homeland. They may consolidate themselves in Kabul and in their own ethnic areas, while they await the Pashtuns to start the process of searching for a formula for power sharing and the drafting of a constitution.
The communist experiment would have taught them that an excess of secularism over the spiritual didn't work but neither did an excess of the spiritual over the temporal under the Taliban. Perhaps the return of the king is important if only to remind them that too much governance from any single source is not what is needed and that a return to the controlled anarchy of the past is best suited to the Afghan temperament.