Afghanistan: The great Asian sink hole

Now that the Taliban have retaken Kabul, we can try to imagine the region's future.

Most likely, it will misleadingly shift from panic to short-term stability and back into long-term struggle.

Taking Kabul was the easy part for the Taliban; building a unified emirate will prove as difficult as building a diverse democracy.

Poverty, population growth, climate change, and bad governance can transform Afghanistan and its surroundings into a new sink hole.

The Taliban h...