A former senior White House staffer who now heads one of the nation's leading human rights groups came out strongly against the recently inked nuclear accord with Iran and urged members of Congress to vote against it, marking another severe blow to the Obama administration's campaign to sell the deal publicly.
Jonathan Greenblatt, a former special assistant to President Barack Obama who left that post several months ago to head the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), criticized the Iran deal as fundamentally flawed and urged members of Congress to block its implementation.
"Given the outstanding questions and our deep reservations about the agreement, we believe Congress should vote no on the deal," Greenblatt said in a join statement issued late Thursday with ADL national chair Barry Curtiss-Lusher.
The ADL's denouncement of the deal is likely to ruffle feather among the Obama administration, which has had close ties to the organization and used it to defend controversial policies in the past.
ADL's break—and Greenblatt's tough statement—is another sign that bi-partisan support for the deal is crumbling.
Greenblatt also took exception to the White House's use of rhetoric that many have described as anti-Semitic to smear Jewish opponents of the deal.
"As parties continue to debate this issue, we urge all stakeholders to refrain from character attacks and innuendo that impugn the motives of one side or the other and to be sensitive to language that recalls age-old anti-Semitic stereotypes," Greenblatt wrote in the statement.
As for the substance of the nuclear deal itself, the ADL stated that "serious concerns remain" on a range of key issues, including the "effectiveness" of verification on Iran's nuclear program, Iran's "renewed legitimacy," and the "credibility of U.S. deterrence" going forward.