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A few years ago, you might have balked if someone told you that the U.S. president would be photographed in the White House shaking hands with a man who was a former member of al-Qaeda, an insurgent against U.S. forces in Iraq, and had led one of the largest Syrian Islamist armed groups.

But that’s exactly what happened when Donald Trump welcomed his Syrian counterpart, Ahmed al-Sharaa, to Washington on November 10. Al-Sharaa became the first Syrian leader in history to be invited to the White House.

Al-Sharaa’s stunning ascendancy to power has

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