This is the Friends of History Debating Society.

I'm Gaius.

Giamaticus is here, and we turn to a subject that it's so determinedly messy

that for 2,000 years, serious minds have attempted to solve it.

We're not going to try.

We're going to bring some perspective.

This is the Fertile Crescent.

You start in Armenia, province of Roman Empire, 102, 106, somewhere in there, about 10 years from now.

Height of the empire.

Then you have the province of Mesopotamia.

Neither of them are big money earners.

You give them to junior senators who you all favor.

Syria makes money.

It includes Palestine, Damascus, Jerusalem, Tyre, Sidon,

Antioch.

Antioch, thank you. And then you have what is called Arabia, small peace.

We would call it mostly Gaza.

And then you're in the lower Egypt where the money is.

But only the big senators get that.

Now, we've threw legion after legion into this region, and we got emperors out of it,

vespation. However, we never solved it. 2,000 years ago, 2,000 years later, Assad, where are you?

Bashar Assad, the dentist, inherited from his father and brother a brutal but effective regime

...