Hey, I'm Kelli McEvers, and this is embedded.

I usually don't get very excited about the latest Washington memoir,

but there's this new book out that is different,

because it's a book I've been waiting for for a long time.

It's called The World As It Is.

It's by a guy named Ben Rhodes.

He was a deputy national security advisor and a speechwriter

for President Barack Obama.

And he helped shape the administration's policy on Syria.

A place I covered for years.

A country where hundreds of thousands of people have been killed by their own government

and are still being killed by their own government.

And until recently, it seemed like the US was standing by and doing nothing.

Every time I went into Syria, I was asked the same questions.

What was the US going to do to stop the killing?

And if they weren't going to do anything, could they just tell us why?

Now reading this book and talking to Ben Rhodes,

I know what people in the administration were thinking.

I know how decisions were made in the White House.

How sometimes they were deliberate and sometimes they happened almost by accident.

I know that Ben and some other young idealists in the administration

really wanted the US to do something, anything.

...