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As seen in intelligence video and reported by U.S. officials, an Iranian vessel removed an unexploded mine that had been attached to a Japanese-owned oil tanker which suffered serious damage after an explosion in the Gulf of Oman early Thursday.
At least one other mine attached to the hull detonated, causing the blast which forced the crew of 21 to abandon ship. It happened near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a key route for oil shipments in the region.
Ben Rhodes, the former failed novelist and aide to former failed President Barack Hussein Obama, said he questions U.S. claims that Iran attacked the oil tankers. ["After all," he might have said to himself, "why would they do such a mean thing after President Obama sent them $1.9 billion on wooden pallets and they cheerfully accepted it? It was Trump's fault that it happened anyway."]
Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas bashed Rhodes for questioning the United States' claim that Iran was responsible for the attack, in spite of visual confirmation of an Iranian-style military craft removing an unexploded mine on the damaged Japanese vessel, the Kokuka Courageous.
Rhodes, who usually fails at most things he tries, pushed for the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and later admitted publicly that he lied about Iran's subsequent bellicose behavior after promising us that they would cease all nuclear ambitions.
Rhodes suggested that the U.S. official assessment of the tanker attacks shouldn’t be taken for granted, [i.e., believed] saying only an international investigation can get to the bottom of the incident and he would love to help with that undertaking.
“This definitely feels like the kind of incident where you'd want an international investigation to establish what happened. Huge risk of escalation,” the weasel said in a tweet.
If Iran sent an ICBM to Los Angeles, Rhodes would tell us to wait and see if it was loaded.
Rhodes' self-serving remark prompted a strong rebuttal from Crenshaw, the freshman congressman and former U.S. Navy SEAL officer. He blasted Rhodes for downplaying the danger posed by the Iranian regime and doubting the intelligence community with his own lack of intelligence.
Crenshaw tweeted:
“So, do or don’t believe the Intel community? And you’re not really a trusted source to weigh in on Iran. You sold the public the falsehood of a moderating Iranian regime - using your media ‘echo chamber’ (your words)- & ignoring the true danger Iran presents in the region."He added:
“I’ve been watching for years as Iran moves weapons to proxies around the region, looking for opportunities to destabilize & wreak havoc, and then claim innocence. This is not new. And the Administration is right to strengthen our regional presence as a deterrence.”Crenshaw refers to Rhodes’ now-infamous comments that the administration’s foreign policy team built an “echo chamber” of experts to help sell the horrible Iran nuclear deal.
“We created an echo chamber,” Rhodes told the New York Times Magazine in 2016 when asked about arms-control experts that appeared at think tanks and were then used as sources for hundreds of reporters – whom the article described as “clueless.”
Of those experts, Rhodes said: “They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say.”
If you take Ben Rhodes seriously and believe his bullcrap, you've got to be a liberal and get your news from MSNBC or CNN.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a former military officer and who graduated first in his West Point class, blamed Iran for the "blatant assault" on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman earlier Thursday.
Pompeo said at a news conference: “This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping, and the fact that no proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication.”
He said that Iran was working to disrupt the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz and that it's a deliberate action to escalate tension. He also made it clear that the U.S. would defend its forces and interests in the region, but did not elaborate.
U.S. officials released a video Friday showing what clearly appears to be Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in a gunboat removing an unexploded limpet mine from one of the vessels. This was the same type of vessel used when our U.S. sailors were taken prisoner by Iran and Obama paid them off.
According to a U.S. official (who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive information) other Iranian small boats have remained near the stricken oil tanker since the attack early Thursday. The official explained that this type of limpet mine was the same type used to damage four other tankers in the Gulf of Oman last month. And the vessel carrying the Iranian military crew is a fast inshore attack craft (FIAC) and is the same type used by Iran in the past to harass American warships in the Persian Gulf.
Make no mistake, Ben Rhodes has his personal credibility riding on the notion that Iran is innocent of these crimes, but like his failed novela, he is full of empty words.
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