IRAN/NUCLEAR/TRUMP PEOPLE: “While many hands gripped the sword that undercut the Iran nuclear deal, no one outside the Trump administration was a more persistent or effective critic than Mark Dubowitz, the chief executive of a hawkish Washington think tank. But rather than publicly celebrate President Trump’s decision Tuesday [5-8-18] to jettison the accord, he is mourning its demise, saying he genuinely wanted to fix the agreement and worries that its unraveling could be dangerous. That lament, though, has enraged the pact’s supporters, who never saw a fix as remotely palatable to Mr. Trump and blame Mr. Dubowitz above all others for providing the intellectual foundation for its passing. They now say he is trying to distance himself from the potentially catastrophic results..Now that Mr. Trump has decided to withdraw from an agreement he called “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into,” Mr. Dubowitz’s campaign to draw attention to what he saw as its flaws has taken its place among the most consequential ever undertaken by a Washington think tank leader.”
-Gardiner Harris, “He Was a Tireless Critic of the Iran Deal. Now He Insists He Wanted to Save It.,” The New York Times online, May 13, 2018