May 15, 2016 – Sen. John McCain, the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman called the new and much-talked-revelation in the New York Times Magazine about how the US administration sold the Iran nuclear agreement to Congress and the public  “deeply disturbing and alarming.”
“They deceived the American people,” McCain told The Arizona Republic. “They set up this straw man, that’s there’s this moderate group out there that will be in power, that the Iranians would change their behavior. If anything, the Iranians have stepped up their behavior, ranging from illegally, in violation of international law, capturing two American vessels, to stepping up their efforts in Syria and their support of the (rebel) Houthis in Yemen. Their aggressive behavior is not only unchecked, it has increased.”
Rhodes emphasized that Obama’s support for reaching out to Iran was made clear in his 2008 presidential run and that, despite any earlier efforts, the White House had little hope of realizing a nuclear deal until Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was elected in 2013.