The World As It Is: Inside the Obama White House There would be more war, more conflict, and more suffering, until-someday-old men would make peace.” History had opened up a doorway in 2011 that, by the middle of 2013, had been slammed shut. Obama had reached that conclusion before I had. Meanwhile, innocent people were going to suffer, some of them were going to be killed, and there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it. A Likud prime minister was going to mouth words about peace while building settlements that made peace impossible. The Saudis and Emiratis were going to stamp out political dissent in Egypt before it could come to their kingdoms. Factions were going to fight it out in the streets of Libya. Bashar al-Assad was going to fight to the death, backed by his Russian and Iranian sponsors.

Reactionary forces-with deep reservoirs of political support in the United States-were intent on clinging to power. Extremist forces were exploiting the Arab Spring.

There was no Nelson Mandela who could lead a country to absolution for its sins and ours. Ultimately, Rhodes writes personally and powerfully about finding hope in the belief that looking squarely at where America has gone wrong can make clear how essential it is to fight for what America is supposed to be, for our own country and the entire world.“Obama was the most powerful man in the world, but that didn’t mean he could control the forces at play in the Middle East. The characters and issues that Rhodes illuminates paint a picture that shows us where we are today-from Barack Obama to a rising generation of international leaders from the authoritarian playbook endangering democracy to the flood of disinformation enabling authoritarianism. Along the way, he discusses the growing authoritarianism of Vladimir Putin, and his aggression towards Ukraine, with the foremost opposition leader in Russia, who was subsequently poisoned and imprisoned he profiled Hong Kong protesters who saw their movement snuffed out by China under Xi Jinping and America itself reached the precipice of losing democracy before giving itself a fragile second chance. He visited dozens of countries, meeting with politicians and activists confronting the same nationalism and authoritarianism that are tearing America apart. “Vital reading for Americans and people anywhere who seek to understand what is happening ‘after the fall’ of the global system created by the United States” ( New York Journal of Books), from the former White House aide, close confidant to President Barack Obama, and author of The World as It IsĪt a time when democracy in the United States is endangered as never before, Ben Rhodes spent years traveling the world to understand why.

After the fall book ben rhodes