The events of my twenties felt historic, but the people involved did not. I wanted a hero - someone who could make sense of what was happening around me and in some way redeem it.

Billions of people around the globe had come to know Barack Obama, had heard his words, had watched his speeches, and, in some unknowable but irreducible way, had come to see the world as a place that could - in some incremental way - change.

It was wrenching to read about the brutality of Assad every morning, to see images of family homes reduced to rubble. I felt we had to do something in Syria.

Ben Rhodes Quotes