The Return of the Taliban

The American exit from Bagram, their Afghan airbase, on July 2 is the enduring symbol of the US withdrawal from its ‘longest war.’ The very next day, 13 districts fell to the Taliban, and the momentum hasn’t slowed. Yet the process of US disengagement was set in motion nearly a decade ago. In February 2011, Hillary Clinton (then Secretary of State) reflected the policy shift when the preconditions for talks with the Taliban—renouncing violence and laying down arms, accepting the Afghan constitution and breaking ties with terror groups like Al Qaeda—were converted into talk outcomes.

Pakistan’s decade-long investment in providing the Taliban safe haven and sanctuary was paying off. The next goal was ensuring the regime’s legitimacy, something it had lacked in the 1990s because only three countries (Pakistan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia) recognised it. The legitimisation process began with the establishment of the