Samuels also described how Rhodes, on the day of Obama’s last State of the Union address last January, tried unsuccessfully to keep out of the news until after the speech the fact that Iran had detained 10 American sailors in the Persian Gulf.
After predicting that media outlets would start showing “scary pictures of people praying to the supreme leader,” Rhodes quickly decided how the issue would be spun instead: “We’re resolving this, because we have relationships.”
(Secretary of State John Kerry would later tell lawmakers that if it wasn’t for his relationship with his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif the sailors, who were released 14 hours after their capture, likely would have ended up as hostages.)
Leading critics of the Iran nuclear deal reacting on social media to the New York Times Magazine article were scathing – both of Rhodes and his colleagues and of the reporters they used to sell the deal.
“Now [we] know why we worked so hard during Iran debate,” Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) executive director Mark Dubowitz wrote on his Twitter feed. “Had to do own research & analysis. Create own talking points. No Rhodes to write for us.”
“Rhodes brags of lying to the public & creating echo chambers,” tweeted FDD senior fellow Daveed Gartenstein-Ross. “That’s the work of a propaganda minister, not a deputy nat’l security adviser.”
“White House admits it played liberal media, NGOs, & think tanks for fools to sell Iran deal,” said Hudson Institute senior fellow Michael Doran.
“Hi there journalists,” tweeted Omri Ceren of The Israel Project. “Did you take quotes from Ploughshares at suggestion of WH comms? You got played for chumps.”
And at Rhodes and colleagues, he directed this barb: “This is what happens when you put children in charge of US foreign policy.”
(CNSNews)