If you wonder what we're up against in Afghanistan, head to the Richardson offices of Tom Box of Box International Consulting.

Snowy-haired at 52, Mr. Box drops a study of Afghanistan's cement industry on the glass-topped table of a conference room adorned with an Afghan flag, two tribal muskets and a beautifully tooled Western saddle.

"It was going to be a challenge to develop an investor base, what with all the market opportunities in the world today," he said. "Yet Afghanistan is an incredible market for an indigenous cement plant. It's one of the only countries in the world without its own cement industry, and there are tremendous opportunities for building materials."

Afghanistan doesn't have much to tempt an investor. But there's lots of lime and gypsum, coal for power and reconstruction money – ingredients, Mr. Box once thought, for a way to re-create the cement business success of his father, Cloyce Box.

But factors that sound more familiar in the political sphere than the business world are working against an Afghan cement producer.

The Hindu Kush Mountains running diagonally across Afghanistan are a boundary for cement territories. All across the south of Afghanistan, from Kabul to Kandahar, Pakistan's cement companies control the market. In the west, around the Afghan city of Herat, Iranian cement makers hold sway.

"The Pakistanis dominate the cement business in Afghanistan," Mr. Box said. "You can't justify building a cement plant in Kabul because the Pakistanis can overwhelm you by dumping cheap product into the market."

Iran, meanwhile, is building up its own cement manufacturing base.

"A tsunami of cement is coming," Mr. Box said. "They will dump product in western Afghanistan, so building a plant in Herat would be a bad idea. Iran will intimidate anybody who invests in western Afghanistan."

The Oct. 8, 2005, earthquake that killed about 80,000 Pakistanis also left hundreds of thousands homeless, and demand for cement soared. Pakistan's government banned cement exports to Afghanistan.

Building projects in Afghanistan ground to a halt. Prices for the cement still available went up 25 percent. Kabul looked around for investors to build cement plants. Box International Consulting was chosen to do a feasibility study funded by the U.S. Trade and Development Agency.

Pakistan lifted the export ban in May 2006 and has regained its Afghan market share.

What Mr. Box recommended to the Afghan government was confining investments to the area north of the mountains crossed by the Salang Pass. Two small cement plants, Ghori I and Ghori II, are located there at a place called Pol-e-Khomri.

When he handed over his study in 2006, Mr. Box thought the next move by the Afghan government would be an invitation to Box International Consulting to form an investor group to rebuild the government- owned Ghori cement complex.

Last April, however, the Afghan Investment Co., an umbrella group headed by chief executive Mahmoud Karzai (brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai) bought the Ghori complex.

The sale to the Afghan Investment Co. was described as part of the government's privatization initiative.

It took Mr. Box by surprise. He won't say what he thinks happened.

In the political realm, Pakistani-based militants of the Taliban keep fighting NATO and U.S. forces to reclaim Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden and the rest of al-Qaeda's terrorist leadership have apparently found sanctuary in Pakistan's tribal areas just across the Afghan-Pakistani border. Iran, meanwhile, exercises control over much of western Afghanistan with militant groups based along its side of the border.

Across the country, Afghanis tell pollsters that they don't like the Taliban and their Pakistani-flavored fundamentalism, but they're also unhappy with the corruption within Hamid Karzai's government.

Whether in business or in politics, Afghanistan seems beset by powerful factions bleeding the wealth and vitality of the struggling country.