_indirect_ action upon India is open to Russia even at present. That
action, which she is powerless to carry on for herself, she may
originate through Persia. And in that we see the remarkable case
realized--that two ciphers may politically form an affirmative power of
great strength by combining: Russia, though a giant otherwise, is a
cipher as to India by situation--viz. by distance, and the deserts along
the line of this distance. Persia, though not so ill situated, is a
cipher by her crazy condition as to population and aggressive resources.
But this will not hinder each power, separately weak _quoad hoc_, from
operating through the advantages of the other; as the blind man in the
fable benefits by the sight of the lame man, whom, for the sake of wider
prospect, he raises upon his shoulders; each reciprocally neutralizing
his own defects by the characteristic endowments of the other. Russia
might use Persia as her wedge for operating, with some effect, upon the
Affghans; who again might be used as the wedge of Persia for operating
upon ourselves, either immediately if circumstances should favour, or
mediately through the Seiks and the Beloochees. On this theory we may
see a justification for Lord Auckland in allowing some weight to the
Persian Shah's siege of Herat. Connected with the alleged intrigues of
the Russian agent, (since disavowed,) this movement of the Shah did
certainly look very like a basis for that joint machinery which he and
Russia were to work. Yet, on the other hand, we cannot but think that
Lord Auckland might safely have neglected it; and on the following
argument, that whatever influence Persia could have acquired in
Affghanistan through the possession of Herat, would to a certainty have
been balanced or overbalanced by an opposition growing out of that very
influence. This happened to ourselves; and this will arise always in
similar cases out of the incohesion essential, to say nothing of the
special feuds incident to the Affghan tribes, khans, and sirdars.