ERBIL, IRAQ—After meeting with senior Iraqi leaders to discuss the country’s increasing sectarian violence, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry retired to his hotel room Wednesday, where he is said to have donned the black clothing and black face mask commonly worn by ISIS militants while reportedly murmuring to his reflection that in order to defeat one’s enemy, one must become them. “I must know their strengths, their weaknesses—I must see the world as they do if ever I am to triumph,” the 70-year-old cabinet official said while wrapping a bandolier of ammunition around his waist and over his shoulders, one of several steps Kerry reportedly carefully undertook to “make [himself] one and the same” with the Sunni militant group. “It is said that if you know your enemies as you know yourself, you will be inviolable in many thousands of battles. So it shall be with me. He who is shrewdest shall be victorious.” The fully black-clad elder statesman was then seen reciting the writings of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, telling himself that “There is no John Kerry; you are Abu Amir now,” and then vanishing into the darkness of the desert night.

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