Trump has done it again. That much is clear. He has outmaneuvered and out-thought everyone else, and did what many others assumed to be impossible.

But what exactly has he done?

On Wednesday morning, during his trip to Saudi Arabia, Trump met with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who from 2017 until January of this year, was known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani. Al-Sharaa was the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the “Syrian Liberation Group,” a Sunni jihad group that had been linked to al-Qaeda and was working to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.