00:00U.S. President Donald Trump has his eyes on Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
00:05We're going to leave Afghanistan, but we're going to leave it with strength and dignity.
00:09We're going to keep Bagram, the big airbase, one of the biggest airbases in the world.
00:14We gave it to him for nothing. We're trying to get it back, by the way.
00:18First of all, it is Trump we're talking about here.
00:20Ghaffar Hussein is a political commentator and geopolitics expert based in London.
00:25Trump is always bombastic and making outlandish statements like, you know, taking Canada and taking Greenland, Panama Canal.
00:32To be honest with you, Canada only works as a state.
00:34We didn't give it to China. We gave it to Panama and we're taking it back.
00:39We need Greenland for national security and even international security.
00:45This begs the question, why is Bagram so important for Trump?
00:49The United States abandoned the airbase when U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021.
00:56Bagram was the biggest U.S. base in the country.
00:59It was originally built by the Soviet Union in the 1950s, but expanded by the Americans.
01:06For nearly two decades, it was the center of the U.S. war effort to oust the Taliban and hunt down al-Qaeda after the 9-11 attacks.
01:16War in Afghanistan was never meant to be a multi-generational undertaking.
01:22We were attacked. We went to war with clear goals. We achieved those objectives.
01:28Bin Laden is dead and al-Qaeda is degraded in Iraq, in Afghanistan. And it's time to end the forever war.
01:37With Trump's call to take Bagram back, is he trying to reverse his own legacy?
01:43I highly doubt that the Taliban would ever agree to allow U.S. troops back on Afghan soil.
01:50They didn't fight U.S. and NATO forces for 20 years just to allow U.S. forces to return now that they're in power.
01:59Lisa Curtis is the director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for New American Security.
02:07She served as deputy assistant to the president and National Security Council's senior director for South and Central Asia during the first Trump administration.
02:17And we also have to remember it was the first Trump administration that negotiated the Doha deal that stipulated that U.S. forces would fully withdraw from Afghanistan by May 2021.
02:31There was never any mention in the agreement about U.S. forces staying at Bagram Air Base.
02:38After his election, then-U.S. President Joe Biden continued the plan for withdrawal that he inherited, but with an end date of August 31st instead of May.
02:49Trump has been highly critical of the Biden administration's chaotic U.S. exit from Afghanistan.
02:56We just went through the Afghanistan total disaster for no reason whatsoever.
03:01But now that the U.S. has fully withdrawn, you know, it's four years later, there's just no question of the U.S. going back into Afghanistan.
03:10That is something the Taliban would not accept.
03:13If that's something that President Trump feels was important, he should have had his negotiator negotiate a better deal with the Taliban.
03:25So the question is, if President Trump knows that asking the Taliban to give back Bagram Air Base is a non-starter, why does he keep repeating this?
03:38Trump's argument for getting Bagram back is the base proximity to China.
03:43But one of the reasons we want the base is, as you know, it's an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons.
03:49One of the things that Trump hinted at and other people have mentioned is Bagram Air Base has a way of keeping China in check and having the China nuclear weapons sites within range.
04:01Now, on deep inspections, this doesn't make a lot of sense to me personally anyway, because China's nuclear sites are actually spread all over the country.
04:09So far, this is Beijing's response after Trump suggested that U.S. troops could return to Bagram.
04:16China does have interest in Afghanistan. This is the other thing that doesn't just be said.
04:33Now, China does have interest in Afghanistan.
04:41This is the other thing that doesn't need to be said.
04:43China was the first country to appoint an ambassador to Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal
04:48when the Taliban took over.
04:49Before the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021, Mike Waltz, the former national
04:58security advisor, now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, had written something
05:06about Bagram Air Base being important for the United States.
05:11In an op-ed to Military Times, this is what Mike Waltz wrote.
05:15In addition to giving up the only air base in the world located in a country that physically
05:21borders China and Russia's southern border, the Biden administration will also give up
05:27a key strategic foothold along Iran's eastern flank and along the nuclear-equipped and unstable
05:34Pakistan.
05:35So perhaps this has planted the seed of an idea in Trump's mind about Bagram Air Base.
05:44But the problem is that what Mike Waltz said about Bagram was before the U.S. withdrew, and
05:52it was an attempt to try to convince, you know, Biden administration officials to keep a limited
06:00number of U.S. forces in the country.
06:02Given Bagram's strategic value, can the U.S. reassert its influence in the region?
06:09Or is it too late?
06:10Trump did hint that the U.S. could retake the base with some kind of Taliban consent.
06:16Trying to get it back, because they need things from us.
06:19We want that base back.
06:21I don't think America has anything that the Taliban really want right now.
06:26If they want loans, China can offer that.
06:28If they want, you know, aid, China can offer that.
06:30So China's kind of muscled America out, if you like.
06:34So they don't really need America for anything.
06:35A Taliban official quickly shut down the idea of the U.S. reoccupying Bagram.
06:41Sakhir Jalal, a Taliban foreign ministry official, said that military presence has never been
06:48accepted by Afghans throughout history, and this possibility was completely rejected during
06:53the Doha talks and agreement.
06:56However, doors remain open for other forms of engagement.
07:00Just a few days afterwards, Trump issued an ultimatum to the Taliban.
07:04Are you asking, are you willing to rule out U.S. boots on the ground to get Bagram back?
07:10We won't talk about that.
07:11But we're talking now to Afghanistan, and we want it back, and we want it back soon,
07:17right away.
07:18And if they don't do it, if they don't do it, you're going to find out what I'm going to do.
07:23Trump followed up with a social media post.
07:25He warned that bad things would happen if Afghanistan did not give back control of the airbase.
07:30It's not so strategic that the U.S. is going to go and engage in military conflict or aggressively
07:36take the airbase.
07:37I don't think it's that true.
07:38It's not an existential issue for the U.S.
07:41He's hinting that he's going to take some kind of extreme action against the Taliban in
07:48the near future.
07:49So it really raises a lot of questions.
07:52It may be that he's trying to ratchet up pressure on the Taliban for something else,
07:58say perhaps the release of U.S. citizen Mahmoud Habibi, who the Taliban took hostage three years
08:08ago and continue to wrongfully detain him.
08:11Since Trump's return to the office in January 2025, at least four U.S. detainees have been freed.
08:18The Taliban recently claimed U.S. invoices had agreed to a prisoner exchange as part of
08:25an effort to normalize ties between the U.S. and Afghanistan.
08:29In fact, they announced it on X just a few days before Trump's background remarks.
08:34It's very important for President Trump to get U.S. citizens who are being held hostage
08:42anywhere in the world to get them freed.
08:44So, you know, this is a top priority for him.
08:48So that is perhaps what is behind this.
08:51Experts DW spoke to, however, said that in the unlikely scenario that the U.S. is allowed
08:58back in Afghanistan, it would be for counterterrorism missions.
09:02It may be that they allow some intelligence officers to be in Afghanistan for a limited period
09:10of time to carry out some joint counterterrorism mission.
09:14But even, you know, that seems also to be a long shot.
09:20And even if something like that did happen, the Taliban would likely want to keep that out
09:26of the public eye and keep that secret.
09:28Experts explain that the U.S. and the Taliban have a common enemy in groups like the Islamic
09:35state Khorasan, or ISIS-K.
09:38ISIS-K is the Afghan offshoot of the so-called Islamic state.
09:42It was formed in 2014 by a faction of defected Taliban and Al-Qaeda members in Pakistan and
09:49Afghanistan, who adopted a more violent interpretation of jihadism.
09:54This is a group that is an enemy to the Taliban.
09:57It's also an enemy to the United States.
09:59So there is mutual convergence in seeking to combat ISIS-K.
10:05It's hardly likely in any case.
10:07But if it did happen, from the U.S. point of view, it allows them to keep an eye on ISK
10:13and regional militancy.
10:14As we know, a lot of terrorist groups do operate in that region.
10:18Why the Taliban have outright rejected the idea of U.S. troops being back in Afghanistan?
10:23They are open to improving ties.
10:25They want a relationship with, I guess, most countries around the world.
10:29European, American, certainly big countries like America.
10:32So far, Russia is the only country that recognizes the Taliban as the legitimate government of
10:39Afghanistan.
10:40The international community has strongly condemned the Taliban's treatment of women and girls.
10:46Under Taliban rule, women and girls have become invisible.
10:49They are banned from attending schools and universities, for example.
10:54If what Trump is trying to do with his background remarks is gaining an upper hand with the Taliban,
11:00experts say Trump should instead pressure the Taliban to stop erasing women and girls from public life.
11:08The issue of whether or not to recognize the Taliban, provide them with international legitimacy or, you know,
11:18establishing diplomatic relations that needs to be conditioned on the Taliban improving the rights of women and girls.
11:28The issue of whether or not to recognize the Taliban is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is the only country that is
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