Ahmed Rashid: The five things that must go right for Afghanistan to prosper

 Lahore

 

From Washington to Kabul and in every capital in between, governments, armies, intelligence agencies and the media are asking what will happen in Afghanistan next year when the US and Nato finally leave after 12 years fighting a war they did not win.

Despite the enormous amount of intelligence available, the truth is that nobody knows, not even the Afghans. The best predictions can only be based on knowing what is going right, what is going wrong and what can be done to minimise the dangers of things getting worse. For more than a year we have been deluged with the so-called success story of the military transition — the handing over of security to the 350,000-strong Afghan army and police — as western forces pull out. We have been told repeatedly that as US-Nato forces step down, Afghan forces will step up.