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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In light of the most recent attacks on civilian oil tankers in international waters in the Gulf of Oman, the Trump administration must now be prepared to escort tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz to protect oil shipments in that vital passageway.

Although such American protection of U.S and other tankers would risk a direct military confrontation with Iran, failing to respond to these attacks in waters through which 35 percent of the world's seaborne oil shipments flow would not only endanger global trade and economic growth, but invite more aggressive action by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

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Russia's leader Vladimir Putin was there. So was President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, along with the heads of Italy, Portugal, Austria, Cyprus, and eight other smaller European states, all ostensible American allies. In late April, 150 nations sent some 5,000 delegates to the second summit in Beijing on Chinese president Xi Jinping's signature economic project—the Belt and Road Initiative.

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