Vice President JD Vance \u2014 a Marine veteran of the Iraq War who has long been skeptical of American military interventions abroad \u2014 insisted Monday that the war with Iran is different because President Donald Trump \u201chas clearly defined what he wants to accomplish.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s just no way that Donald Trump is going to allow this country to get into a multiyear conflict with no clear end in sight and no clear objective,\u201d Vance said in a primetime interview with Fox News.<\/a> His remarks were his first in public since the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran began Saturday.<\/p>\n \u201cThe president wants to make it clear to the Iranians and to the world that he is not going to rest until he accomplishes that all-important objective of ensuring that Iran can\u2019t have a nuclear weapon,\u201d the vice president added. <\/p>\n Trump on Monday outlined the administration\u2019s four key objectives<\/a> for its operations: destroying Iran\u2019s missile capabilities, \u201cannihilating\u201d its navy, preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and ensuring the \u201cIranian regime\u201d cannot continue to \u201carm, fund and direct\u201d its proxy groups in the Middle East. <\/p>\n The vice president was in the White House Situation Room with Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Energy Secretary Chris Wright as Trump launched Operation Epic Fury from his Mar-a-Lago war room in Palm Beach, Florida. <\/p>\n It\u2019s quite a shift from Vance\u2019s previous stance. In 2023, while serving as a U.S. senator representing Ohio, Vance endorsed Trump in a Wall Street Journal op-ed headlined: \u201cTrump\u2019s best foreign policy? Not starting any wars.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n \u201cHe has my support in 2024 because I know he won\u2019t recklessly send Americans to fight wars overseas,\u201d Trump\u2019s future vice president wrote. \u201cIn Mr. Trump\u2019s four years in office, he started no wars despite enormous pressure from his own party and even members of his own administration.<\/p>\n \u201cNot starting wars is perhaps a low bar, but that\u2019s a reflection of the hawkishness of Mr. Trump\u2019s predecessors and the foreign-policy establishment they slavishly followed,\u201d he asserted.<\/p>\n Trump, in the first year of his second term, has ordered more airstrikes than his predecessor,<\/a> President Joe Biden, did in his full four years. <\/p>\n