The United States has done it again. After a telephone chat with President Recep Erdogan, Turkey's Islamist autocrat, President Trump has abruptly reversed U.S. military policy against the advice of the State Department and Pentagon and paved the way for a Turkish invasion of northeastern Syria.

His stunning decision has not only jeopardized a costly victory over the Islamic State, it has betrayed the Kurds, people who were pivotal in defeating the Islamist militants.

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Eighteen years after the attacks on the World Trade Center, many Americans believe that the threat of Islamist terror is played out—but that's only because our counterterrorism efforts have been so successful. Attempted terror attacks no longer make front-page headlines, but the list of foiled plots to kill American citizens is long and chilling. This past summer saw arrests of potential terrorists who would have killed dozens or hundreds of people if successful. On September 3, for example, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged Ruslan Maratovich Asainov, also known as Suleiman Al-Amriki, with providing material support to ISIS. Asainov is accused of having been an ISIS sniper and weapons instructor. A naturalized U.S. citizen (he was born in Kazakhstan) who lived in Brooklyn for nearly 15 years, Asainov traveled in late 2013 to Istanbul, a common entry point to Syria. There, he joined ISIS and rose through the ranks to become an "emir" in charge of weapons training. He tried to recruit other Americans to fight for ISIS in Syria. Asainov messaged a government informant, exclaiming in reference to ISIS, "We are the worst terrorist organization in the world that has ever existed!" He still yearned to die on the battlefield for jihad, Asainov told the informant.

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Here are a few things I know firsthand about being in jail. First and foremost, you have virtually no control over your life and surroundings. You can't get so much as an aspirin without authorization. In most jails, you can't wear a belt, or shoelaces, or keep a razor in your cell. You have no privacy, no sense of dignity, and no rights. And in a well-run jail, high-profile prisoners have virtually no chance of killing themselves.

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Robert Mueller's halting testimony on Wednesday produced no political bombshells and is unlikely to shift American attitudes toward President Donald Trump or his administration. It also appears unlikely to boost efforts by some Democrats to impeach the president, much to the relief of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has repeatedly warned her caucus that such an effort could backfire, absent bipartisan support.

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President Trump's trip Sunday to the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea and his historic decision to cross briefly into North Korea was a made-for-TV diplomatic spectacular. But it was also a test of whether personal diplomacy can trump (so to speak) longstanding definitions of a country's national interests by persuading North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to end his nuclear weapons program.

Foreign policy realists – and count us in – are skeptical. There is no indication so far that Kim has abandoned his goal of the North being accepted as a nuclear weapons power and getting the crippling American and United Nations economic sanctions against his isolated country lifted.

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