The Truth-Challenged Susan Rice Tells Rachel Maddow Another Whopper

Susan Rice threw her credibility out the window when she agreed to peddle the Obama administration’s lies about the Benghazi attacks on five talk shows. Despite the spin she provides in her recent book about the CIA “revising” their talking points shortly afterward, she knew what she was saying was false. Rice was frustrated and had confided to her mother before making her appearances on “Fox News Sunday,” ABC’s “This Week,” CBS’ “Face the Nation,” NBC’s “Meet the Press,” and CNN’s “State of the Union.” Her mother’s response? “I smell a rat. This is not a good idea. Can’t you get out of it?”

Anyway, on Friday night, Rice joined Rachel Maddow, another known liar, who has misled her viewers about the Trump/Russia collusion hoax for the last three years, to discuss the U.S. drone strike on Quds chief Qasem Soleimani. Still carrying the water for her former boss, Rice tells Maddow “the Obama administration was not presented with an opportunity by our intelligence community or by the U.S. military to strike Qassem Soleimani.”

Susan Rice: "The Obama administration was not presented with an opportunity by our intelligence community or by the U.S. military to strike Qassem Soleimani." pic.twitter.com/y0CrcnfLvw

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) January 4, 2020

Rice also told Maddow:

Had we been presented such an opportunity, what we would have done is weigh very carefully and very deliberately the risks versus the potential rewards.

So, if in fact the administration can be believed that there was indeed strong intelligence of an imminent threat against the United States that’s being carried out by Soleimani and related militia then the question becomes, [was] there more than one way to address that threat? Was the only way to deal with it to kill Soleimani? Certainly, given his history and track record, he deserves his just rewards but the question is does that serve our interests? Does that make us more secure?

I do think the risk of direct conflict and sustained conflict with Iran – a war – has gone up immeasurably. There’s no question in my mind that they will retaliate in a very serious way in a time and a place of their choosing — maybe multiple times and multiple places.

There are so many things wrong with Rice’s statements.

First, Soleimani traveled throughout the Middle East very openly and brazenly during the Obama years. And why shouldn’t he? Obama wanted to obtain a nuclear deal with Iran so badly to cement his legacy, the last thing he would have done was kill Soleimani.

Tablet Magazine’s Tony Badran described how Soleimani rolled during the Obama administration in a recent article. “Seemingly immune from U.S. retaliation, Soleimani spent the Obama years strutting around Iraq and Syria like a peacock in ’70s-style turtleneck sweaters and an array of tailored military-style jackets like an IRGC version of Al Pacino in Scarface, while garnering admiring magazine profiles.”

Badran also discussed Obama’s outreach to the Iranians:

This nauseating treatment started at the top. Under President Obama, the U.S. was realigning with Iran, which meant providing its regime with billions of dollars, some of it hand delivered by U.S. officials in the form of large pallets of cash. The U.S. also provided direct military support to Soleimani’s Iraqi militias as part of the anti-ISIS campaign. It was important not to cross Iran’s red lines, administration officials regularly leaked at the time, so as not to jeopardize the safety of U.S. soldiers while they killed Iran’s enemies in Iraq and Syria–a strategy that was variously labeled as “counterterrorism” or “the fight against Al Qaeda” or “the war against ISIS,” and which invariably involved aligning with Iran to kill Sunni Arabs, who form the majority of the region’s population.

Taking the red-carpet treatment for granted, Iran appears to have badly miscalculated with President Trump.

Obama had an agenda and it did not include killing Soleimani.

Second, Rice implies that Trump impulsively issued an order to kill Soleimani without considering the safety of American diplomatic and military personnel in the area. That is not true.

Contrary to Obama’s lack of concern for the safety of U.S. government staff abroad, it was Trump’s top consideration. All we need to do is look at the differences between the Obama administration’s handling of the attack on Benghazi vs. the Trump administration’s handling of the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to debunk that claim.

It’s not a mystery why so many members of the military love Donald Trump. He has tremendous respect for them and puts them first.

Rice said the Obama team would have deliberated over the consequences of killing Soleimani, weighed the “pros and cons.” Does Rice believe that President Trump arrived at his decision in a vacuum? It was all hands on deck on Thursday night. The President was being advised by top officials from the Pentagon, the State Department, the National Security Council, and others. After weighing all of the pros and the cons and implementing safeguards for Americans operating in the area, Trump made his decision.

Obama’s pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran influenced every aspect of his administration’s policy toward the country, giving its leaders the upper hand. They immediately spotted this advantage and exploited it. Obama did not have U.S. national security interests in mind when he made his foolish deal in 2015. It was all about his legacy. His willingness to put his own glory ahead of our national security in his dealings with Iran, was far more dangerous for America than President Trump killing a man who is responsible for the deaths of thousands.

But there she was again, on a different network, interviewing with a different host, spouting the same lies – this time to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

Rice said, “During my tenure as national security advisor, we didn’t have the opportunity, to my knowledge.”

Pants on fire!

Remember these days?