Published on: September 22, 2025 3:34 AM

When Donald Trump thundered that the Taliban must “hand back” Bagram airbase or face “bad things,” it was more than a headline-grabbing remark. It reopened Afghanistan’s old wound: the tug-of-war between foreign powers and local rulers over who truly commands the Hindu Kush. Bagram, for those who have forgotten, is not just a dusty airstrip. At its peak, it housed 10,000 US troops, two runways large enough for heavy bombers, and a prison that became a byword for America’s long war. More importantly, it lies less than 400 kilometres from China’s Xinjiang, within range of Tehran, and a short hop from Central Asia. Whoever holds Bagram occupies a front-row seat in the geopolitics of three regions.

The Taliban, predictably, invoked sovereignty to reject Trump’s demand. Yet sovereignty, in Kabul’s lexicon, has long been a convenient fiction. Since sweeping back to power in 2021, the Taliban have neither monopolised violence nor governed effectively. The Doha pledge to prevent Afghan soil from being used against others lies in ruins. In just two years, Pakistan has endured more than 700 cross-border attacks by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), killing over 1,000 civilians and soldiers. ISIS-Khorasan, meanwhile, has carried out more than 300 bombings and assassinations since 2022, striking Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif and Herat with impunity.

Biden’s Washington believed that cutting and running would end America’s entanglement. It did the opposite, leaving a vacuum filled by militants and deepening Pakistan’s crises.

It is important to recall who presided over the 2021........

© Daily Times