Despite many centuries of no change, I think there is a light at the end of the tunnel in Afghanistan, and many other similar places...
We now have a viable global communication network (internet, cell phones, etc). Most of these people simply don't know what they don't know...a little exposure to the rest of the world will probably get them thinking and we can help the process along in some cases by stabilizing what we can and encouraging education and open political processes.
In some of the worst places it might take more than one generation though...