The biggest mistake Barack Obama could have made is to change quite a few things in his Afghanistan policy. He increased the number of troops and at the same time set the US withdrawal date to 2014. Now the United States has to ensure that Afghanistan does not immediately collapse after being left to itself in 2014.

[Mullah Omar] gave himself this religious title. So it was something that all those people there who swore an oath of loyalty to him as a religious leader could not easily get rid of.

The strategy for peace-building in Afghanistan is economic aid, reconstruction, international security forces. On those lines, the U.S. has been extremely slow. And it has even blocked expanding security forces from Kabul to other cities.

The Soviets held to the tradition of colonialism. They raped the country and killed many people. But they also built dams, electrical power plants, streets, and technical schools. They were communists and had the same vision for Afghanistan that Stalin and Lenin had for the Soviet Union: Progress is communism plus electrification. And today? Today Kabul gets its electrical power from Uzbekistan, Herat from Iran and Jalalabad from Pakistan.

The idea of a permanent U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, as opposed to an economic presence, is going to create a new wave of hostility toward the United States.

I am confident that there are hedge funds, banks or investment companies that could allocate five percent of their portfolios for risky investments. In any event, for countries like Afghanistan the formation of an entrepreneurial class is of vital importance.

The West would be well advised to change its approach towards failing states. At present, no major power can find the correct ways and means - and the numbers of failing states are increasing. This year we watched the collapse of Mali, a consequence of the Libyan civil war. The south of Libya and Mali, and Niger too, are well on the way to becoming a no-man's land. After 9/11, George W. Bush and Tony Blair made the promise that they would not tolerate failed states because they could become a haven for terrorists. And today? The number increases.