NYT: Obama Misled Public on Iranian ‘Moderation’ to Pass Nuclear Deal

Cortney O’Brien:

A new piece in The New York Times Magazine reveals confirms that the Obama administration knowingly misled the public to pass the Iranian nuclear deal. Our president knew full well that Iranian leadership had not adopted “moderate” policies, but the notion was a politically useful one.

When Hassan Rouhani was selected as the new president of Iran, he was heralded as a more tolerant kind of leader. TIMEmagazine referred to him as a “moderate politician” when he was voted runner up for 2015’s Person of the Year. (This is why that title deserves to be in quotes.)

Yet, as the NYT piece notes, the Obama administration’s negotiations with Iran began well before President Rouhani and his advisors assumed leadership.

National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes knew the narrative was more important than the truth. The NYT describes how this “storyteller” flowered the facts to gain public support.

The idea that there was a new reality in Iran was politically useful to the Obama administration. By obtaining broad public currency for the thought there was a significant split in the regime, and that the administration was reaching out to moderate-minded Iranians who wanted peaceful relations with their neighbors and with America, Obama was able to evade what might have otherwise been a divisive but clarifying debate over the actual policy choices that his administration was making.

The administration’s presentation of the Iran deal, the Times concludes, was largely “manufactured” for the purpose of selling the deal.

In other words:

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