US V-P Vance treads Iran tightrope with eye on 2028 presidential election

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US Vice-President J.D. Vance has only given one television interview since the Iran war started, in which he stressed it would not be another American “forever war".

PHOTO: BLOOMBERG

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WASHINGTON – For a man with his eye on the White House in 2028, US Vice-President J.D. Vance has kept a low profile since the start of the Iran war.

The former US Marine, who served in Iraq, built a political brand as a non-interventionist who wanted to keep America out of any more long, foreign wars.

But the 41-year-old now finds himself treading a tightrope between loyalty to US President Donald Trump on Iran, and to the conflict-sceptic MAGA faithful he will need to win the Republican nomination in two years.

Even Mr Trump admitted they had their differences on Operation Epic Fury.

“He was, I would say, philosophically a little bit different than me,” Mr Trump said on March 9 of Mr Vance. “I think he was maybe less enthusiastic about going, but he was quite enthusiastic.”

While he has publicly backed Mr Trump’s Iran operation, Mr Vance has only given one television interview since it started, in which he stressed it would not be another American “forever war”.

The New York Times reported that once it was clear Mr Trump was set on the strikes, Mr Vance pushed for them to move quickly.

On the night the war started, Mr Vance was in the White House Situation Room, according to a photo issued by his office, while Mr Trump, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other key team members were huddled at Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Mr Vance has not commented when attending the transfers of US service members killed in Iran, and referred only briefly to the “conflict” at an unrelated political event this week.

The usually prolific social media user has also been virtually silent.

“The war’s put him in a very uncomfortable space, ideologically and politically,” Professor Matt Dallek, a political management expert at George Washington University, told AFP.

“Maybe even more than Trump, J.D. Vance came to power because of his anti-interventionist credentials.”

Mr Vance’s office did not respond when asked multiple times to comment by AFP.

But his spokesman William Martin said on X earlier this week that claims he was keeping a low profile were “ridiculous”, noting that Mr Vance was on “prime time TV” after the operation began.

In past years, Mr Vance has been much more vocal.

He was the senator for Ohio when he wrote an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal in 2023 titled: “Trump’s Best Foreign Policy? Not Starting Any Wars”.

In the 2024 election, as Mr Trump’s vice-presidential candidate, he said that “our interest, I think very much, is in not going to war with Iran”.

In office, Mr Vance has also served as Mr Trump’s attack dog on foreign policy.

His hawkish opposition to US support for Ukraine after Russia’s invasion exploded into the open when he triggered a furious confrontation between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Mr Trump in the Oval Office in 2025.

Mr Vance has, however, always been a political chameleon.

In the lead-up to the 2016 US presidential election, Mr Vance once compared Mr Trump to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

Vance versus Rubio?

But what does it mean for Mr Vance in what is widely expected to be a battle against top diplomat Rubio in 2028?

Neither man has officially declared their intention to run for the presidency – and Mr Rubio has publicly said he would not challenge the man who has become one of his closest friends in the administration if he throws his hat in the ring.

Mr Trump, meanwhile, has not said which one he will choose to anoint as the heir to his MAGA movement.

But The Wall Street Journal said that Mr Rubio received far louder cheers when Mr Trump asked a crowd at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser on the evening before the Iran attacks which one they wanted.

A long-term foreign policy hawk, Mr Rubio, 54, has been heavily involved in the planning and defence of the Iran operation and has repeatedly won Mr Trump’s praise in recent months.

But Mr Trump’s shadow will be hard to escape for both men.

“Whatever Vance says or does, it’ll be very hard for him to distance himself from Trump – and for that matter, Rubio’s going to have a hard time doing this as well,” said George Washington University’s Prof Dallek. AFP