Vice President J.D. Vance emerged this week as the White House surrogate in chief to sell the agreement with Iran to end the war. In a slew of television and podcast appearances, Vance has explained how a war President Donald Trump once promised would end only with Iran’s “unconditional surrender” will now be settled through negotiations. Vance has his work cut out for him.
For many mainstream Republicans, the new memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the U.S. and Iran is nothing more than American surrender. Sharp-tongued Louisiana Republican senator John Kennedy summed up this sentiment on Tuesday when asked if he believed Iran’s regime would abandon its nuclear ambitions during the 60-day negotiation period that starts Friday. “Unless you were homeschooled by a day drinker, no one’s confident that Iran is going to do anything,” Kennedy replied.
To Vance, though, the doubters have it all wrong. The vice president argued that America wins either way with the agreement. “Either they get nothing, we’ve destroyed their nuclear program, and the Strait of Hormuz is open,” he told Fox News on Tuesday. “Or they fundamentally transform themselves, and that’s a big win, too.”
