JD Vance is the face of the beleaguered Iran deal – is he its fall guy?

JD Vance has taken the greatest gamble of his vice-presidency by making himself the face of the Iran ceasefire deal – a shaky agreement that already seems to be unraveling at the seams. But after months spent in limbo due to the war, it may be the best chance for him to find his feet again. A funk had set over the US vice-president’s camp since the administration launched its war in Iran in February. Vance, a vocal opponent of the “forever wars” of the previous administrations (he had served as a combat correspondent in Iraq), was now being forced to defend the largest US military intervention in the Middle East in a generation. In public, he had been left out of the war room at Mar-a-Lago and appeared to be distanced from the Iran war planning. In private, journalists were being briefed on his opposition to the war. “We could see that he was deeply uncomfortable” with the war, said one of Vance’s former colleagues in the Senate. “This is not what he joined the administration to do … But he chose to play [along] with Trump himself.” “He knew this could happen,” the senator added. It had even, some insiders have said, imperiled Vance’s likely run for the presidency in 2028, where he remains the presumptive Republican favorite but has lost ground to Marco Rubio, a foreign policy hawk who has proved a competent top diplomat and security official. …