WALLS covered in creepers, paint fading through neglect - there is little to suggest there is anything special about the small, four-bedroom villa. Only the presence of security guards raises an eyebrow, but even this is not uncommon in a neighbourhood popular with footballers and wealthy businessmen and home to La Cicciolina, the porn-star turned Italian MP.

But for three decades this otherwise anonymous villa just outside Rome has taken the place of a royal palace for the man who could hold the key to the future of Afghanistan.

His Majesty Mohammed Zahir Shah has not set foot in his homeland since he was ousted in a bloodless coup in 1973. But the 86-year-old former King of Afghanistan is now seen as the figure most able to fill the power vacuum left by the expected toppling of the Taliban regime.

Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, and the international coalition's determination to take action against both Osama bin Laden and his Taliban hosts, the king has been thrust from obscurity into the spotlight. American and British officials have been beating a path to his door to discuss his role in an interim, Western-backed administration, if the Taliban regime is overthrown.

European Union ministers met yesterday to discuss the options for Afghanistan's future, with the king's return part of a detailed plan put forward by the French. This would see Zahir Shah at the head of a transitional administration, where all Afghan factions were represented, although EU officials were anxious not to be seen to be dictating the form of any future Afghan government.

But restoring the king to his throne, even as more of a figurehead than a ruler in his own right, may not be quite so straightforward, according to Pat Chilton, professor of international relations at Sunderland University.

"I think it is a very doubtful option. It would be very false and difficult to do," she says. "I don't think the guy himself is up to it and it really does seem to be clutching at straws."

The king himself has largely kept out of politics since he was deposed by his cousin, remaining silent during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and the assumption of power by the Taliban. But, while this means he has become a distant figure to many Afghans, it could also have its advantages, according to Prof Chilton.

"There are lots of leadership figures in Afghanistan, all involved with different factions, and they're all at odds with each other," she says. "If the king can be a unifying force or can rise above these factions and be neutral, it may be a good thing. He has been out of it for so long, he is not part of one faction or another, but the downside is he hardly has any following inside the country, and not a great deal of sympathy from the ordinary people. Restoring the king may be seen as following the Iranian example, of setting up the Shah, but even worse than that, in that he will be a weak version of the Shah."

Many in the international coalition are pinning their hopes for overthrowing the Taliban on the Northern Alliance, with the belief that they may be able to take control of Kabul. Tribal and opposition leaders are said to be planning a summit within the next ten days to draw up a strategy for a post-Taliban government.

But the Northern Alliance itself is a fractured assortment of tribes and warlords, united only in their hatred of the Taliban. And the movement has also suffered the loss of its only widely-respected commander, Ahmed Shah Massoud, whose assassination days before the September 11 attacks has been blamed on agents working for bin Laden.

And, as well as the Northern Alliance, which has its stronghold in north-eastern Afghanistan, tribal warlords in other parts of the country are also hungrily eyeing up the opportunity to increase their power, on the assumption that the Taliban regime is doomed.

"Like many of these military regimes, the Taliban looks very strong and iron-fisted, but it doesn't always take a great deal to unseat them," says Prof Chilton. "But it's how you do that and what you replace them with that is the difficult part.

"I'm very sceptical about some of the things I have heard about the drift of thinking in terms of the Northern Alliance taking over. Getting the Northern Alliance to do the fighting on the ground, which seems to be very much what is being played out now, and waiting for them to oust the Taliban regime in Kabul, is fraught with all sorts of problems and it is not likely to lead to a regime any more likeable than the Taliban.

"The Northern Alliance will have to resort to the same tactics as the Taliban in order to control Afghanistan, which is an extremely authoritarian style of military control. They won't easily gain the loyalty of the many factions and different ethnic groups."

The US-led coalition's desperation to topple the Taliban has seen the Alliance given support, but risks creating another Frankenstein, says Prof Chilton. "Just as, ten years ago, the Taliban seemed to be the sort of regime the western allies preferred, it may well seem the Northern Alliance is a much more preferable regime now, but there really isn't much to choose between them. If we arm them and get them to do our dirty work, the danger is that they turn into the exactly the sort of regime that the Taliban became."

The alternative to another military government is moving towards some sort of democratic administration, but this is very much a long-term aim and requires a radical shift in policy by the west, according to Prof Chilton.

"There are lots of examples of democracy coming out of military rule, such as Spain and in Latin America, but it is a very long process and it involves huge changes in western policy towards that part of the world," she says. "Afghanistan is the hardest place to start, because it is so much in tatters. There is barely any foundation.

"Everything that has happened since 1980 has been in the wrong direction, as far as Afghanistan is concerned, and much of that has been the result of western policy. It requires a sea-change in policy, that is then pursued consistently over a long period. It is not something you can do with a quick war and installing another government.

"All we can hope for is that the present hostilities don't create so much havoc that they set things back another ten or 20 years, and that it is possible to pick up the pieces and set off on the long haul of economic and political recovery."