Jeffrey Sachs

This is the basic point.

Yes, we've had our own misguided ideas about this, but...

It's just bizarre.

Of course, Iraq, we know in detail that this was a concocted war, but Syria has never been understood in as much depth, but it's the same story.

Why suddenly did Barack Obama

feel the compulsion to task the CIA with overthrowing Bashar al-Assad.

Assad must go.

Yes.

That was on the lips of everyone in one day.

Are you kidding?

I remember I was on Morning Joe that morning that either Hillary or Obama said Saddam must go, and Joe turned to me and said, what do you think about that?

I said, oh.

It's interesting.

How are they going to do that?

Well, it took 14 years, hundreds of thousands of deaths, tens of billions of dollars, massive destruction, massive destabilization.

Refugee crisis.

To put a jihadist in charge right now and then clean it up.

Exactly.

And to destroy, of course, historic sites as they're doing in Iran right now, cultural sites, I should say, that are human heritage, not only Syrian or Iranian heritage, but world heritage, because they've lasted thousands of years in an

our idiocy, we're destroying them in ours.