One would laugh were this sentiment less accurate.

Here's a suggested strategy.

Afghanistan has about 40m people, we think. That gives it a population roughly the size of Spain's, but over a 20% larger land mass. Only a quarter of this population is urbanized, although this rate is increasing. The multiplicity of biggish ethnic groups (i.e tribes) is every bit as vexatious as in the most poorly organised African state, but the country is basically bilingual.

Here's what we do. Half the country speaks Persian (or Dari, as it's confusingly called). This half should be handed over to Iran.

The other half speaks Pashto, as does the north-west of Pakistan. So hand Kabul and the rest of the Pashto areas over to the Pakistanis - providing that they agree to allowing a Nato ground presence to assist with security. Punjabis would still remain easily the biggest ethnic group in this Greater Pakistan.

Afghanistan - that dusty, infertile, and landlocked problem - would disappear.

After all, partition sometimes works. Singapore and Malaysia have enjoyed a friendly rivalry since the partition of Malaya. The partition of Yugoslavia ended a hideous civil war and created several peaceful countries. There are plenty of partitions that were so uneventful to now have been almost forgotten, such as the partition of Slovakia and the Czech Republic. .

Of course, the worry is that if you start redrawing the map in one place, you'll increase pressures to redraw it elsewhere (Kashmir, Israel, etc). But Afghanistan has been a problem for centuries. Its geography and demographics do not bode well for its independent status. Better that it is absorbed into nations with maritime borders, manufacturing industries, ports, civilisation etc.

That makes sense. I don't fully understand the history behind the Durand Line, but it seems like it had more to do with separating Russian and British interests, and it just persisted without any formal ratification by the states that are there today.

Do you think the rather narrow, eastward reaching salient that would be created would become a problem for Iran. It would give them a couple of new neighbors. How well do they currently get along with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan?

If memory serves, the Durand Line was at least partly drafted to divide seditious Pashtun tribes. Needless to say, those tribes have never recognised the border - or the countries it is supposed to demarcate, really.

If Pakistan suddenly expanded eastward, it may be more willing to disregard its claim over Kashmir, creating peace with India in the process. If Iran absorbed the Dari-speaking bits of Afghanistan, its new, greater stature might be enough to dissuade it from stirring trouble in places like Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.

Iran currently has a quiet (if uneasy) relationship with Islamic former Soviet states to its north-east. This is part of a quid pro quo with Russia and China, who defend Iran at the UN on the proviso that it does not try to export its Islamic Revolution into the Sino-Russian backyard of Central Asia.

Actually, Iran has reason to be pleased at the moment. It was once surrounded by a hostile Soviet north (Azerbaijan), a hostile Iraq (Saddam) and a hostile pro-Soviet and then pro-Taliban Afghanistan. Now, all three of its immediate neighbours have freindly governments, yet Iran keeps playign the same old tricks. Perhaps this disproves my hope that a Great Iran would be less of an international jackass.