Afghanistan

Bartering girls into marriage to pay off opium debts has become more prevalent in recent years in Afghanistan. Farmers, middlemen in the drug trade, drug couriers, and even some drug lords themselves sell their daughters to more powerful traffickers and smugglers -- and very little is being done to combat the injustice.

The international community has hung virtually all its hopes for development in postwar Afghanistan on the National Solidarity Program, which tasks citizens with carrying out rural projects. But by depending on unskilled populations, the program dooms itself to inefficiency. And its short project timelines mean that there is hardly any time to transfer know-how to locals.

The dispute between Kabul and Washington over who should control the Bagram detention facility underscores the many difficulties the Obama administration will face as it prepares to pull U.S. troops out of the country.

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is driven largely by domestic politics. That is a privilege of a country that is both rich and safe. But the United States has security interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan that, despite its best attempts, it will not be able to ignore.