Another conference on Afghanistan has come and gone, but the problem remains as intractable as ever. No one has any idea how the underlying issues facing Afghanistan and the region will be resolved, but the international community soldiers on in the hope that ultimately there will be light at the end of the tunnel.

The latest gathering in Bonn two weeks ago marked the 10th anniversary of the conference in the same city that established an interim government in Afghanistan after the Taliban was ousted in 2001.

The final communiqué issued at Bonn tried to be uplifting amid the doom and gloom surrounding the issue as it underlined that the international community was ready to stand by Afghanistan after NATO's withdrawal in exchange for good governance, and that "substantial progress" had been made since the last conference a decade back.