Don't leave Afghanistan too soon

The participants in the international Afghanistan conference in Kabul have agreed that the country will assume responsibility for its own security by the end of 2014. The decision puts Kabul under fatal time pressure, writes the business paper Il Sole 24 Ore: "The problem is not the money that the West makes available but that Afghanistan moves slowly and not the way we want it to. The international community is in a hurry but changes there take time: a costly product that is in short supply nowadays in the West. Spending eight hours in Kabul is an eternity for the delegations, harried by their desire to leave quickly, yet paradoxically the nine years since the Taliban was forced from power ... have passed in a flash. How much more time do we want to invest? The answer is simple. As little as possible. But 2014 is an apocalyptic deadline for people who have no time: so near and yet so far."

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