What did Donald Trump do today?

He gave the Taliban a golden opportunity to score points off him.

Last Thursday, in a characteristically rambling speech during a state visit to the United Kingdom, Trump casually mentioned that he was interested in reacquiring Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan. He complained that "we gave it to them for nothing" and stressed that it was important for the United States to "get it back" because it was near to a Chinese nuclear weapons facility.

A few things are worth mentioning for. First, the terms of the American withdrawal were set in 2020 by Trump, who essentially endorsed the Taliban, the notoriously repressive theocratic regime that sheltered Osama bin Laden. 

Second, China has had a nuclear arsenal since 1964, and the United States has bombers that can fly 12,000 miles. In the extremely unlikely event of an American air attack on Chinese nuclear facilities, something that would probably result in a nuclear war regardless, having a runway in Afghanistan would be meaningless.

Trump had apparently bounced the idea off of aides in previous months, but it's not clear that he actually meant to announce it publicly, or if his staff had any idea that he was going to. But with the cat out of the bag either way, the Trump administration rushed to put a proposal to the Taliban. Trump suggested that the Taliban—again, one of the least free nations in the world—could earn American support and money.

Today, the Taliban gave their response, telling Trump to get real—in almost exactly those words.

The United States could, of course, simply re-invade Afghanistan and retake the base, but there are quite a few problems with that. It would all but destroy what's left of American legitimacy in world diplomacy. The cost in both dollars and American lives would be enormous, not least because of Trump's overt betrayal of Afghans who supported the United States in the previous war. 

And, perhaps most importantly to Trump, it would cast doubt on his self-proclaimed role as peacemaker. He's recently been claiming to have ended between six and ten wars since returning to office (this is not even remotely true) and just yesterday announced that he had ended the war between Cambodia and Albania.

 

Cambodia and Albania are approximately 5,300 miles apart and have never fought a war. Of course, it was interpreted as a slip of the tongue, but it's at least the third time in a week that Trump has been unable to remember which wars he'd supposedly ended.
 

Why does this matter?

• It's a problem if the President of the United States can't remember why he wasn't supposed to blurt out plans to make friends with (or maybe invade) the Taliban. 

• Trump might have genuinely warm feelings for the people running Afghanistan, but there's no reason for any other American to.