Vance’s anti-war posture collides with his more hawkish views on Iran

Vice President JD Vance’s role in promoting the war in Iran is, on the one hand, an uncomfortable position for an Iraq War veteran who gained political prominence as an anti-interventionist.

The fact that President Donald Trump did not start a war during his first term underpinned the early support Vance offered him during his bid for the White House in 2024. And an old Merle Haggard song — with the lyrics “Let’s get out of Iraq and back on the right track” — was played as Vance arrived for the second night of that year’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

But Vance has also consistently taken a more hawkish stance toward Iran, saying the United States must be prepared to prevent it from developing or deploying nuclear weapons. And while Trump and members of his administration have offered various justifications for starting a war without congressional approval, Vance has focused narrowly on Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

“What the president determined was that he didn’t want to just… protect the country from an Iranian nuclear weapon for the first three or four years of his second term. He wanted to make sure that Iran could never have a nuclear weapon, and that would require, fundamentally, a change in mentality on the part of the Iranian regime,” Vance said Monday evening in an interview on Fox News.

“So he saw that the Iranian regime was weakened, he knew that it was determined to move closer to nuclear weapons, and he decided to act because he believed it was necessary to protect the security of the nation,” he added.

Vance reinforced the message later that night in an X-rated post that included a clip from the interview.

“President Trump will not drag the United States into a years-long conflict without a clear objective,” he wrote. “Iran can never be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon. That is the goal of this operation and President Trump will see it through to completion.”

Behind the scenes, in the days before the war, Vance made known his reservations about kinetic action in Iran, a person familiar with his thinking told NBC News. Once it became clear that the decision to engage militarily had been made, Vance focused on limiting casualties and advocated quickly launching a strike, fearing that the longer the United States waited, the more likely it was that the plans could be leaked to the media, making it more likely that Iran would preemptively attack American troops in the Middle East.

So far, six U.S. service members have been killed during the operation, which Trump said could last four or five weeks or more.

The war and his obligations as Trump’s vice president to defend it could complicate Vance’s political future in a Republican Party that has less appetite for foreign intervention than it did during the era of President George W. Bush’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Vance is considered a likely candidate for president in 2028, when Trump will be term limited.

Vance’s public messaging has in some cases mirrored statements he made before his debut as Trump’s running mate more than 18 months ago. Speaking to Fox News’ Sean Hannity at the Republican convention, Vance cited Trump’s first-term drone attack that killed Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani as an example of smart leadership.

“A lot of people recognize that we need to do something with Iran, but not this weak bombing,” Vance said. “If you want to hit the Iranians, you hit them hard. And that’s what he did when he took out Soleimani.”

Days earlier, on a show hosted by Morgan Ortagus, a foreign policy operative who served Trump as the president’s deputy special envoy to the Middle East, Vance acknowledged his reputation for advocating “restraint in foreign policy.” But he also called for an “aggressive” approach to stifling Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

“I think war often leads to unintended consequences, but preventing Iran from getting a bomb is really, really important,” Vance said.

Vance was more conciliatory in the days leading up to the 2024 election, when comedian and podcaster Tim Dillon asked him how a new Trump administration would handle a “massive war in the Middle East.”

“Obviously, you know, Israel has the right to defend itself, but America’s interest will sometimes be distinct,” Vance responded. “For example, sometimes we will have overlapping interests, and sometimes we will have distinct interests. And our interest, I really think, is not to go to war with Iran, right? That would be a huge distraction of resources. It would be extremely costly to our country.”

But Vance also highlighted his concerns about Iran’s nuclear program.

“I don’t want Iran to get a nuclear weapon, and I think we should encourage the Iranians very strongly and use all the influence we have to encourage them not to have a nuclear weapon,” he told Dillon.

Expounding his thoughts, Vance added: “I’m not saying we stick to the Middle East and start a war here, but as we recognize, okay, the Israelis [and] The Gulf Arab states don’t like Iran, so let the Israelis and Gulf Arab states provide a counterbalance to Iran. America does not need to constantly monitor every region of the world.”

Still, after becoming vice president, Vance, speaking last year at the Munich Conference of Leaders in Washington, described Iran’s nuclear program as a turning point.

“We really believe that if the Iranian domino falls, we will see nuclear proliferation throughout the Middle East,” he said. “It’s very bad for us. It’s very bad for our friends. And it’s something we don’t think can happen.”

The following month, Trump ordered airstrikes on nuclear enrichment sites in Iran.

“We are not at war with Iran,” Vance said in an interview the next day on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” “We are at war with Iran’s nuclear program.”

In the same interview, Vance attempted to reassure those who, like him, might be skeptical of such incursions into the Middle East.

“I certainly sympathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East,” he said. “I understand that concern, but the difference is that back then we had stupid presidents, and now we have a president who actually knows how to achieve America’s national security goals.”

Since then, Vance has also expressed his belief that any military engagement in Iran would be short-lived.

“The idea that we’re going to be in a war in the Middle East for years with no end in sight — there’s no chance of that happening,” he said in an interview with The Washington Post last week, less than two days before the war began.

Vance reiterated that belief Monday night on Fox News. Asked by host Jesse Watters about the parallels with the long and costly wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Vance said Trump had a clearer mission than his predecessors.

“I said it before the conflict began, I will say it again: It is simply not possible for Donald Trump to allow this country to engage in a multi-year conflict with no clear end in sight and no clear objective,” he said.

“What’s different about President Trump, and frankly different about Republicans and Democrats of the past, is that he will not let his country go to war unless he has a clearly defined goal. He has defined that goal: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and must make a long-term commitment to never trying to rebuild its nuclear capability. That’s pretty clear. It’s pretty simple. And I think that means we’re not going to get into the problems we had with Iraq and Afghanistan.