Growing tired of a lingering war, international community has been taking hasty decisions on withdrawal from Afghanistan and transitioning security responsibility to Afghan forces. An agreement was signed last Friday about transferring the control of main coalition prison to Afghan authorities within six months. There is not any agreement on terms of a long-term and strategic partnership between Afghanistan and US.

This partnership is perceived to be serving as means to make sure that there is maintained flow of support and aid provided by the US to Afghanistan. Afghan government has signed some strategic agreements with European countries such as Britain, France and Italy. It is also said to have started negotiation with other NATO and EU to sign long-term partnerships to ensure their sustained help to the country.

These are the developments in terms of the relations between international community and Afghan government. They are apparently positive but since Afghan government is extremely weak and Afghan security forces do not have the required capability, equipment and skills to assume the responsibility to protect the country, they could be the beginning of new problems.

The last ten years are described to have been squandered opportunity. Afghan government is plagued with rampant corruption that has generated a wide gap between it and the people. It is not delivering the required services to Afghan people. The neighboring countries that do not want a stable Afghanistan have accelerated their attempts to use different sources of instability to make sure that international community is challenged in the Afghanistan and that the international community is not granted a permanent presence in the country under strategic agreements.

International community, in particular the US also has initiated negotiations with Taliban and other insurgent outfits. Over the last ten years, the Taliban have always asked for withdrawal of international forces and viewed it as a key to bringing peace to the war-torn Afghanistan. It is also reported that the US has agreed to transfer five senior Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo bay to Qatar as a part of deal between the two parties. In the meanwhile, Taliban are waiting for the international forces to pull out of Afghanistan in 2014 to attempt for a return to power to run Afghanistan.

Lack of trust been Afghans and coalition, interferences by neighboring countries and inefficacy of Afghan government will give rise to further concerns about the fate of the democratic achievements made over the last ten years. For instance, Taliban and other destructive elements from inside and outside the country use Quran burning issue and the shooting in Qandahar to further provoke mistrust between international forces and Afghan government and security forces. All these show an ongoing crisis situation and an unpromising future that require a rethinking on the part of international community and Afghan actors.