Strong words, strong and effective condemnation of Rhodes.
Thanks RACPE.
A key JCPA promoter was Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, on the White House National Security Council from 2014 to 2016. Like Hezbollah, she too was “interesting.” Nowrouzzadeh put in time with the National Iranian-American Council, friendly to the Iranian regime. That proved no obstacle to a position in the State Department, which approved Nowrouzzadeh’s anti-Trump articles such as “Trump’s Dangerous Shift on Iran,” in Foreign Affairs.
Nowrouzzadeh’s primary defender was White House NSC staffer Ben Rhodes, profiled by Tom Ricks in a December 28, 2017 Foreign Policy piece headlined, “A stunning profile of Ben Rhodes, the asshole who is the president’s foreign policy guru.” In his elephantine The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House, Rhodes notes Nowrouzzadeh’s service with “an organization that advocated for diplomacy in Iran.” Rhodes brings Sahar into his office and says “We just can’t let them win,” without citing any opponents and why they rejected the deal.
After Trump’s hit on Soleimani, Nowrouzzadeh stayed on the quiet side...
Tom Rogan of the Washington Examiner wondered “why does anyone listen to Ben Rhodes’s foreign policy opinions?” Thanks to Rhodes and company, “Iran has been able to use new business deals and sanctions relief to export its fanatical revolution.” Rogan recalls that Rhodes also “masterminded Obama’s supplication to Cuba” a move that “strengthened the Communist dictatorship without extracting any significant improvements to its human rights policy.”
The hit on Soleymani drew comparisons to the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi. White House National Security Advisor Susan Rice blamed that attack, which killed four Americans, on an internet video. After Trump’s action last week, Rice told reporters “this administration sadly, tragically, has a record of almost-daily misrepresenting the facts, telling falsehoods about issues big and very small.”