And somehow the warlords and their private armies have to be removed from the scene.
Beyond the city limits, the warlords who have traditionally dominated the country still give the orders.
Mohammad Nayim wants the warlords who ruined his life to be prosecuted no matter where they are now.
NPR: For Afghan Fighter the War Continues as Loyalties Shift
Human rights groups are appealing for more of the warlords to be held to account for their crimes.
NPR: For Afghan Fighter the War Continues as Loyalties Shift
Wasn't it true, some wiseacres grumbled, that by arming the warlords he had opened the way for the Taliban and al-Qaeda?
But they remain a serious menace, financed by the profits from a resurgent opium trade, as are many of the warlords.
Previous peace deals that integrated war criminals into Congo's army, including Ntaganda, reignited conflict soon thereafter as the warlords again behaved lawlessly.
But the government has failed to unite the country against the warlords.
Muhammad Khatami, Iran's president, says he wants to carry on helping with crop substitution, but the warlords of southern Afghanistan are not interested.
ECONOMIST: Drugs, Iran and Afghanistan: What the Taliban banned | The
Currently the warlords seem to consider killing hostages bad for business.
Economic growth and political stability are not feasible unless America sticks around forever, buying off the warlords and injecting billions of (borrowed) dollars into a backward economy.
On the whole, they think America would be wise to abandon the warlords and spend cash building up the Somali economy wherever there is a bit of order.
Mr Karzai has another pressing reason to confront the warlords.
ECONOMIST: Hamid Karzai must now put his electoral victory to good use
Yet the offshore oil industry, and even the onshore diamond industry, continue to thrive, the revenue financing the war, on both sides, and fattening the pockets of the warlords.
If there is no clean line dividing the criminals from the warlords, it no longer makes sense to choose between investments in the justice system, in democracy or in formal diplomacy.
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It has had enough of Mr. Karzai and the warlords and the opium growers and the ISI interlopers who have made our mission there even harder than it needed to be.
However, others believe that such a project will take at least two years, and that it is too risky to leave the country in the hands of the warlords until then.
Then there are the warlords, wrestling for regional control.
Controlling the warlords proved more difficult than anyone had expected, and ten months after American troops first landed, a Blackhawk helicopter was shot down during a mission to capture one of those warlords.
If the moderate Islamists find more in common with the Shabab than with the warlords and what is left of the transitional government, the fighting could be as bad as at any time since Somalia imploded in 1992.
Nashir, the Khanabad governor, who is the scion of a prominent family, said that the rise of the warlords was just the latest in a series of ominous developments in a country where government officials exercise virtually no independent authority.
Just as the drug trade fuelled the warlords of Afghanistan, a high proportion of heroin sold on the streets of Europe is shipped and controlled by criminals from Kosovo and northern Albania whose tentacles stretch from southern Italy to the Gulf of Finland.
But unless there is some counterweight to the warlords and drug lords who have bullied ordinary Afghans for the past decade, there is not much hope that tribal assemblies, however well planned, will be able to unify the country and set it on the road to recovery.
If in Afghanistan and Pakistan the danger is coming from the Taliban, Al Qaeda, the warlords and other non-state powerful actors, what makes us think that in Latin America we will be able to control a similar coalition of the drug cartels, the FARC, Hezbollah and the free criminals of the Chavez regime?
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It has also been aided by the presence of both an American-led force of 18, 000, which is hunting down the remnants of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and a separate, 8, 000-strong NATO-led force, which is keeping the peace while a new Afghan national army and police force are built up and the warlords' private militia are disarmed.
Many of the Afghan warlords have fought both the invading Soviets in the 1980s and later, the Taliban.
NPR: For Afghan Fighter the War Continues as Loyalties Shift
But some of the Tajik warlords who enjoy power on the ground more than their 20% share of the population would warrant seem less keen on allowing foreigners to guarantee their security.
The local warlords, who probably profit from the trade, pay little heed to Mr Karzai or his police.
ECONOMIST: Drugs, Iran and Afghanistan: What the Taliban banned | The
They have also hinted at a willingness to negotiate with the feeble transitional government in Baidoa, perhaps offering it three or four cabinet posts, including those previously held by the secular warlords sacked for their part in the recent fighting in Mogadishu.
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