Jeffrey Sachs

So time is not permissive right now.

We can't say, well, we'll decide in another month.

We'll see how things go.

We'll negotiate and see what happens.

Right now, there is an ongoing, building, global, serious economic crisis.

And that is because a narrow stretch of water through which comes an enormous amount

extremely important strategic flow of resources, oil and gas, obviously, but also fertilizers and petrochemicals and many, many other key commodities, aluminum and others, is closed.

To simply open it is fine.

That's basically what the off-ramp would allow.

It would be the right answer.

It would not solve...

any of the underlying issues that led to this, and it would not solve any of the stated objectives of the United States, much less Israel.

I don't believe those objectives were valid, and therefore I don't think that they should be the basis of a decision to take or to not take that exit ramp.

But the point is, there's a way...

out of this thing that would avoid the escalation to something quite different.

So what is that other path?

The other path is, well, we're in this unstable situation.

The world economy is reeling because of the Strait of Hormuz being closed.

And we have to do something about it.

We can't just sit there for weeks or months and we refuse to just allow it to reopen and not have those goals met.