For the last three years, we have heard nonstop from the left about how Donald Trump is undermining America by questioning the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. Some criticism of the President was warranted, but, over the last 48 hours, Democrats and their liberal media allies have gone out of their way to question U.S. intelligence showing that Iran was responsible for attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
On Monday’s Morning Joe, America’s chief Iran spinner Ben Rhodes did just that. The former fiction writer turned Deputy National Security Adviser under Obama said that the Trump Administration was isolating America from the international community by “pinning the blame” on the Iranians for the attack in spite of the assessment made by American intelligence officials:
The reality is when Trump pulled out of the Iran Nuclear Agreement, he lied about it. He said that Iran wasn't complying. That was his rationale for months. He refused to certify the Iran Deal even though Iran was complying. So he has a credibility gap on issues related to Iran that the Europeans have confronted him on in the past. What this means is, if you want to pin the blame on Iran, you're going to have to do extra due diligence and have some kind of international investigation. You’re going to have to present this evidence at forum like the United Nations. That’s not how the Trump Administration operated and It means we're isolated in trying to pin the blame on the Iranians.
This should come as no surprise. During his time in the Obama White House, Rhodes was at the forefront of an administration that constantly did the bidding of Iran. He was the chief negotiator of the Iran Deal, which gave the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world freedom to expand its sphere of influence in the Middle East. He did it by lying to the American people about a “moderating” Iranian regime and creating what Rhodes called a media “echo chamber” that ignored the true danger Iran presents in the region.
The full transcript is below. Click “expand” to read more.
Morning Joe
06/17/2019
6:43 A.M. Eastern
JOE SCARBOROUGH: There's also – there’s this bizarre checks and balances system where you have Rouhani, you have the Supreme Leader, and then you have the Revolutionary Guard who sometimes seem to be independent players themselves.
BEN RHODES: Yes. Essentially, what we saw is competing power bases underneath the Supreme Leader where you have the Revolutionary Guard over here, and Rouhani and Zarif over here trying to at least pursue a path of engagement with the West and everything that Trump has done has contradicted his aims because it's empowered the worst people in Iran who are quite comfortable being in a conflict position with the United States, an adversarial position with the United States. That's where they've been for the last 30 years. And unfortunately, again, it leaves us with even worse options than we had before.
JONATHAN LEMIRE: So Secretary of State Pompeo and the Trump Administration are saying Iran is behind the attacks on the oil tankers. Some U.S. Allies are suggesting they need more evidence of that. But what can they do, how can they press the U.S. and what do you think of what you’ve seen so far?
RHODES: Well, first of all, nobody should be surprised that this is where we are. When you have an administration with this degree of a credibility gap, allies are not going to trust you and your first proclamation of what happened in a complicated situation like these tankers getting fired in the Straights of Hormuz in the Gulf of Oman. The reality is when Trump pulled out of the Iran Nuclear Agreement, he lied about it. He said that Iran wasn't complying. That was his rationale for months. He refused to certify the Iran Deal even though Iran was complying. So he has a credibility gap on issues related to Iran that the Europeans have confronted him on in the past. What this means is, if you want to pin the blame on Iran, you're going to have to do extra due diligence and have some kind of international investigation. You’re going to have to present this evidence at forum like the United Nations. That’s not how the Trump Administration operated and It means we're isolated in trying to pin the blame on the Iranians.
