Ansible ansible_module_tower error

Installed ansible-tower-cli from pip onto Centos 7.4 with Ansible 2.5.1
I have logged in with the cli program and created a ~/.tower_cli.cfg
AWX is running in a container without self-signed certs
######################################
# playbook
---
- hosts: localhost
  gather_facts: false
  vars:
    - org: gsm
  tasks:
  - name: "awx_config: add organization"
    tower_organization:
      name: "{{org}}"
      tower_config_file: "~/.tower_cli.cfg"
################################################
Running the above playbook returns this error:
The full traceback is:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/tmp/ansible_uO5r8V/ansible_module_tower_organization.py", line 103, in <module>
    main()
  File "/tmp/ansible_uO5r8V/ansible_module_tower_organization.py", line 84, in main
    tower_auth = tower_auth_config(module)
  File "/tmp/ansible_uO5r8V/ansible_modlib.zip/ansible/module_utils/ansible_tower.py", line 57, in tower_auth_config
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/tower_cli/utils/parser.py", line 105, in string_to_dict
    'variables.\nvariables: \n%s' % var_string
tower_cli.exceptions.TowerCLIError: failed to parse some of the extra variables.
variables:
[general]
host = http://awx-web-svc.gsm.svc.cluster.local:8052
username = admin
oauth_token = XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
verify_ssl = False