Donald Trump may be the only politician capable of transforming a former jihadist into a respected statesman faster than the Middle East can produce its next ceasefire.

Consider Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Not long ago, he was better known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the leader of Al-Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria. The United States designated him a terrorist. Washington accused his organization of orchestrating suicide bombings. He spent years fighting American forces and was regarded as precisely the sort of man Western leaders were not supposed to welcome into polite company.

Then Assad fell. Iran’s influence in Syria collapsed.

And suddenly Al-Sharaa achieved something arguably more difficult than toppling Assad: he convinced Donald Trump that a former jihadist commander was now part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Within months, the former jihadist was meeting the President of the United States. Trump praised him as a “tough guy” and an “attractive guy.” As recently as the G7 summit, Trump suggested that Syria should be allowed to handle Hezbollah. It was a surreal moment: the President of the United States effectively proposing that a former jihadist leader might be the solution to another jihadist problem.

Yet the truly interesting story is not Al-Sharaa. It is Trump, because this is not the first time the president has performed this political magic trick. Over the years, dictators, strongmen, adversaries, and former enemies have repeatedly entered Trump’s orbit as dangerous threats and emerged as smart people, strong people, rational people, and, above all, people........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)