Iran pushes Vance, a skeptical intervention, in the role of the seller

When he approved Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy in 2024, then-sen. JD Vance framed his support around a simple idea: Trump had not started any war during his first mandate.

Now as vice-president, Vance is called upon to make a more complicated case to defend Trump’s decision on Saturday To drop bombs on nuclear enrichment sites in Iran.

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Vance was alongside Trump in the White House situation room during strikes, and at the television address to announce them. And the next morning, he appeared on two Sunday news programs to respond to direct diving in the United States in a conflict between Israel and Iran.

The United States said Vance on NBC News’ “Meet the press“, Was not at war against Iran, but rather with the program of nuclear weapons of Iran. Diplomacy, Vance added: “has never been real by the Iranians. “And on ABC”This week“Vance argued that Trump’s assertion according to which Iran’s nuclear capacities had been” completely and completely erased “was not significantly different from a characterization of tamer in the New York Times that the program had been “seriously damaged”.

VANCE sale Sunday – amplified with Secretary of State Marco Rubio by the BLANCHE HOUSE RAPSE ASSEMBLY IN A clip flow Posted on social networks – was not out of line with some of his most beautiful statements on Iran. But his television appearances were also supposed to reassure others who, like Vance, were largely skeptical or opposed to foreign intervention.

“I certainly sympathize with the Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign tangles in the Middle East,” said Vance on “Meet The Press”. “I understand the concern, but the difference is that at the time, we had stupid presidents, and now we have a president who really knows how to achieve the American national security objectives.”

A confrontation with Iran, added Vance: “is not going to be a long and trained thing. We entered, we did the job to resume its nuclear program. We will now work to permanently dismantle this nuclear program in the coming years, and this is what the president began to do. Simple principle: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. ”

Vance “was selected to be vice-president in part for situations exactly like this,” said a person close to the Trump team who obtained anonymity to share internal thought.

“The president has total confidence in his ability to effectively communicate the message of the administration, in particular in hostile territory, in a way that can bring his coalition closer, instead of dividing it,” added this person.

A divided coalition has been a concern in Trump’s world since Israel has launched air strikes against Iran last week, causing Iran’s reprisals – and fears that the United States would soon be more directly involved in the conflict.

A lot influential figures in Trump’s Magi movementFrom the former Trump advisor, Steve Bannon, to the young right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, have strong isolationist or anti-intervention views and popular platforms from which they share.

Vance himself was a spearhead for such positions, which he articulated in January Guest column 2023 He wrote to approve Trump in the Wall Street Journal. Several people from Trump’s orbit cited this approval, which arrived at a low time in the Trump campaign in 2024, as a key construction block in a relationship that has been transformed in the vice-president.

“During the four years of power of Mr. Trump, he did not start any war despite an enormous pressure from his own party and even members of his own administration,” wrote Vance in the column, which appeared online under the title “The best foreign policy of Trump? Not starting wars.”

“Not starting wars is perhaps a low bar, but it is a reflection of the donut of the predecessors of Mr. Trump and the foreign policy that they followed,” added Vance.

This vision of the world, held by Vance and others, was at the time particularly powerful given the far -right opposition to the American intervention in the Russian war against Ukraine. But those who are close to Vance note that over time, he applied a more nuanced thought towards Iran.

Speaking last year on a Show hosted by Morgan OrtagusA foreign policy agent who served Trump as an assistant special special presidential in the Middle East, Vance called for an “aggressive” approach to ensure that Iran does not develop or deploy a nuclear weapon.

“And if, God does not like it, they get there, then I think you should be ready to take extreme measures – if they want to be effective – to make sure they have no wider nuclear capacity, that they cannot launch nuclear missiles throughout the Middle East or even in the world,” said Vance in the interview. “I think we have to be aggressive with it, and I come from a restraint in foreign policy. I think that war often leads to unforeseen consequences, but preventing Iran from making a bomb – really, really important. ”

In a Fox News interview During the national republican convention of last year, Vance organized Trump’s Drone of Trump Attack that killed Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani As an example of intelligent leadership.

“Many people recognize that we have to do something with Iran, but not these small weak bombings,” Vance at the host Sean Hannity told Vance. “If you are going to hit the Iranians, you hit them hard. And that’s what he did when he came out Soleimani.”

More recently, at the Munich Leaders conference last month in Washington, Vance described the Iranian nuclear program as a tilting point.

“We really think that if Iran Domino falls, you will see the nuclear proliferation of the Middle East”, ” Vance said. “It’s very bad for us. It’s very bad for our friends. And it’s something that we don’t think it can happen.”

Last week, as the anticipation of the American intervention grew, Vance used his personal account X to issue a Preventive defense of 374 words From all that Trump could decide to do with Iran.

The president, wrote Vance: “gained some confidence on this issue. And after seeing this closely and staff, I can assure you that he is only interested in using the American army to achieve the objectives of the American people. Whatever he does, that’s his goal. “