{"id":745104,"date":"2026-06-18T19:33:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T19:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/745104\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T19:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T19:33:08","slug":"will-the-iran-deal-destroy-j-d-vance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/745104\/","title":{"rendered":"Will the Iran deal destroy J.D. Vance?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to foreign policy, Donald Trump is neither hawk nor dove. He\u2019s a dealmaker who plays differing sides off each other. In so doing, he ends up disappointing warmongers and peaceniks in equal measure.<\/p>\n

Rather than blaming Trump for a bad deal, his pro-Israel supporters will tie its shortcomings to Vance<\/p>\n

On 28 February, when he launched Operation Epic Fury<\/a>, Trump\u2019s more dovish supporters felt betrayed. The president who had campaigned against regime-change wars began a new conflict by channeling George W. Bush. \u201cTo the great, proud people of Iran I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,\u201d he said. Many America Firsters, including former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and media star Tucker Carlson, accused Trump of sabotaging his movement and his presidency by fighting a war for Israel that would hurt America\u2019s interests, cost thousands of lives and plunge the world economy into recession. Joe Kent, the counterterrorism director, quit in disgust. Tulsi Gabbard, his Director of National Intelligence, resigned soon after.<\/p>\n

Now, after four months of missiles and strategic muddle, Trump has struck an initial peace agreement with the Iranians and it is the War Party\u2019s turn to feel aggrieved. Insider Washington this week has been buzzing with rumors that members of the President\u2019s inner circle \u2013 including CIA director John Ratcliffe and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth \u2013 \u201cmay pay a personal price\u201d for opposing the deal.<\/p>\n

This Friday, in Switzerland, barring a late blow-up, Vice-President J.D. Vance will sign the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the US and Iran. Both sides will agree to end the war on all fronts, including specifically Lebanon \u2013 meaning Israel must stop its attacks on Hezbollah, Iran\u2019s proxy. America will end its sanctions on Iran and authorize a $300 billion fund for post-conflict reconstruction, made up from Tehran\u2019s frozen money and aid contributions from Gulf states. In return, Iran will agree to re-open the Strait of Hormuz and promise never to build a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n

There will be 60 days for \u201ctechnical negotiations\u201d as to how that all might work and, crucially, what exactly will happen to \u2018the dust\u2019 \u2013 Iran\u2019s enriched uranium.<\/p>\n

But Marc Thiessen, the influential former Bush speechwriter, has already described the MOU as \u201ca complete disaster.\u201d And Mark Levin, the Fox News host who is close to the President, has been clashing with pro-deal voices on social media.<\/p>\n

The script has flipped. In March, opponents of the war were accused of cowardice and disloyalty. This week, it\u2019s the peace-skeptics being called \u201cPanicans.\u201d Four months ago, Senator Lindsey Graham said Trump was \u201ca modern-day Roosevelt and Churchill\u201d for taking on the Great Hitler that is Iran. Today, Israeli officials are calling the President \u201cChamberlain\u201d for having appeased the evil ayatollahs. One source close to Benjamin Netanyahu even branded Trump a \u201closer\u201d and Israeli officials insist they will not accept any deal that allows the Islamic Republic to survive or hampers their ability to conduct strikes in Lebanon.<\/p>\n

Congressional Republicans are also keen to express their concern that the Iran agreement might end up being weaker than Barack Obama\u2019s JCPOA arrangement, which Trump tore up in his first term. Rather than blaming Trump for a bad deal, his pro-Israel supporters will tie its shortcomings to Vance, a well-known anti-interventionist. Some are already calling the MOU \u201cthe Vance deal.\u201d On Fox this week, one pundit characterized<\/a> the administration\u2019s approach as \u201cHillbilly Obama\u201d \u2013 a not-so-subtle reference to the title of the Vice-President\u2019s memoir.<\/p>\n

Both Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, though keen to show their commitment to Trump\u2019s agenda, have tried to distance themselves from his unpopular war and its ramifications on their presidential ambitions. The difference is that Rubio has privately expressed reservations about negotiating with the Iranians, whereas Vance has become the frontman of the ongoing peace process. This week, he has appeared on almost every American news channel, selling the MOU as Iran\u2019s last chance to come in from the diplomatic cold.<\/p>\n

If the deal collapses, or is widely seen as a humiliation for America, Vance will be dismissed as a foreign-policy dunce. It\u2019s notable that the odds on him becoming the next Republican presidential nominee are lengthening, while Rubio\u2019s have shortened. Sources close to Vance have let it be known he is now considering not running in 2028.<\/p>\n

Yet the key negotiators of this fragile peace have been Trump\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his peace envoy Steve Witkoff. There\u2019s an anti-Semitic theory that, because both men are Jewish, they must be working hand-in-glove with Tel Aviv. But Kushner and Witkoff have in fact been far more subservient to their actual boss, who is desperate to find an \u201coff-ramp.\u201d<\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s government has been frustrated that Kushner and Witkoff have frozen Israeli officials out, even denying them access to the wording of the MOU, apparently at the request of Qatar and Pakistan.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Trump, who still insists he has a \u201cgreat relationship with Bibi,\u201d has made clear his anger at Israel\u2019s aggression in Lebanon. At the G7 in France on Tuesday, he went so far as to suggest that Syria and its former terrorist president Ahmed al-Sharaa \u201ctake care of Hezbollah, because to be honest with you I think they\u2019d do a better job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump can always claim that, when it comes to protecting Israel from Iran, he was willing to do more than any other president. Ever the optimist, he believes he has found a third way between the pro- and anti-interventionist positions. But his war seems destined to force a painful reckoning over America\u2019s relationship with its closest ally in the Middle East. And Vance or Rubio may well have to deal with that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it comes to foreign policy, Donald Trump is neither hawk nor dove. He\u2019s a dealmaker who plays…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[110171,64,63,5575,293297,358562,114304,107036,358563,358564,44,63303],"class_list":["post-745104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-2028-election","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-iran","tag-iran-ceasefire","tag-iran-nuclear-deal","tag-j-d-vance","tag-marco-rubio","tag-neocons","tag-neoconservatism","tag-news","tag-vance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=745104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}