Taliban militants (file photo)

Michael Hughes: It was easy to blame the 2021 collapse of the Afghan economy on the abrupt withdrawal of foreign aid after the fall of Kabul, which overnight effectively cut the country’s GDP nearly in half. In fact, even the most advanced economies would take years to heal from the type of blow Afghanistan took after the Taliban takeover. But Taliban 2.0 have so far only made Afghanistan’s financial situation worse with bad decisions and defective policies driven by a combination of ideological absurdities, corruption, and incompetence. Click here to read more.