Vice President JD Vance faces 'tough challenge' at Iran cease-fire talks
by Paul Godfrey · UPIApril 10 (UPI) -- U.S. Vice President JD Vance was due to fly to Islamabad, Pakistan, on Friday ahead of the start of talks to tie-down a fragile cease-fire with Iran with the larger aim of agreeing a permanent peace, if possible.
The assignment heading up the U.S. negotiation team comes at high personal political risk for someone who has until now been engaged in a delicate balancing act of vocally backing the war in public, while opposing it in private, two unnamed White House officials told MS Now.
"Vance's national security team is extremely wary. So many people are afraid of being on the outs," one of the officials said.
The success or failure of Trump's Iran gambit is highly consequential for the remainder of his term and by association, Vance, who is viewed as Trump's most likely successor and the person in line to win the Republican Party nomination for president in 2028.
"This is probably the toughest thing he'll do as vice president. It's not going to be easy," a former administration official told The Hill, referencing the gulf between the United States and Iran on everything from nuclear enrichment and the Hormuz Strait to Lebanon, which Tehran insists is covered by the cease-fire.
On the record, the White House strenuously denied there was a problem, insisting Vance was fully on board and was huddling with the other principals in the U.S. negotiating line-up, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law.
"The vice president has been fully integrated in the entire process of Operation Epic Fury, from the planning and launch of the operation to working diligently with Witkoff and Kushner as talks progress and now leading the U.S. delegation to Pakistan," an official said.
However, Vance's skepticism over the war has even been alluded to by Trump.
"He was, I would say, philosophically a little bit different than me. I think he was maybe less enthusiastic about going, but he was quite enthusiastic," he said last month, adding that he and Vance "get along very well on this."
Vance's opposition to U.S. involvement in foreign wars, long-standing and widely known, could have utility in the talks in Islamabad, said a former White House official who explained it would convince both sides he was sincere in wanting a cease-fire, imbuing the U.S. stance with plausibility.
On the other hand, the U.S. administration needed to present unanimity of purpose in the talks and any whiff of equivocation risked undermining that.
"There's a vulnerability in Vance's involvement. If it's clear that Vance is uncomfortable and he says or does something that softens the president's tone and tenor, then that just adds a whole new voice that you can't have," the former White House official said.
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Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks during a press briefing at the Pentagon on Wednesday. Yesterday, the United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire, with the U.S. suspending bombing in Iran for two weeks if the country reopens the Straight of Hormuz. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo