The Iran nuclear deal has a new standard-bearer. It is not President Joe Biden. It is not Secretary of State Antony Blinken. It is Senator J.D. Vance.
Yes, that J.D. Vance. The Ohio Republican. The one who once called Trump 'America's Hitler.' The one who now wears the MAGA mantle like a second skin. And, crucially, the one who has quietly become the most influential voice on Iran policy in a party that can't decide whether it wants a deal or a war.
How did this happen? The answer lies in two words: Donald Trump. The former president looms over every Republican foreign policy debate. His shadow is long and dark. But he is also in Florida, plotting a comeback. He is not on the Senate floor. He is not marking up the bill that would block the Biden administration from re-entering the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. That is where Vance comes in.
Sources on Capitol Hill tell me that Vance has emerged as the key bridge between the White House and Senate Republicans on Iran. It is a strange twist. Vance built his political career on a promise to fight the Washington establishment. Now he is the establishment's go-to guy on the biggest foreign policy challenge of the year.
'He's the only one who can talk to both sides,' a senior GOP aide said. 'The White House knows he has Trump's ear. And the conference knows he won't sell them out.'
Let's be clear: Vance is no dove. He voted against the deal in 2015. He still opposes it. But he is also a pragmatist. He sees the strategic folly of a military confrontation with Iran. He sees the political cost of another Middle East war. And he sees an opportunity to shape a deal that is tougher on Tehran's nuclear program, its ballistic missiles, and its proxies.
White House officials are wary but willing. They admit privately that the original JCPOA is dead. Iran has advanced its nuclear know-how too far. The question is whether a new deal, with Vance's fingerprints all over it, can resurrect something from the ashes.
The irony is not lost on anyone. Vance, the Trump loyalist, is now the face of a deal that Trump tore up. Vance, the outsider, is now the insider. Vance, the man who wrote a memoir about escaping poverty in Appalachia, is now shaping the future of the Middle East.
But this is Washington. Strange things happen. And in the shadow of a former president who still dominates his party, a new leader has emerged. His name is J.D. Vance. And he is just getting started.
