Darkness in the Chasm: Vance's Iran Stance
The VP must straddle GOP faultlines
As Israel’s campaign against Iran continues and Trump seems to be edging towards U.S. involvement, Vice President Vance posted a veritable essay on the site formerly known as Twitter. Vance begins by stating that he is in the loop and that Trump has always been clear that Iran cannot be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon. Then Vance states that the administration sought a diplomatic solution, but that Iran has insisted on enriching uranium beyond the limits needed for a civilian program. Vance concludes:
Meanwhile, the president has shown remarkable restraint in keeping our military's focus on protecting our troops and protecting our citizens.
He may decide he needs to take further action to end Iranian enrichment. That decision ultimately belongs to the president. And of course, people are right to be worried about foreign entanglement after the last 25 years of idiotic foreign policy.
But I believe the president has earned some trust on this issue. And having seen this up close and personal, I can assure you that he is only interested in using the American military to accomplish the American people's goals. Whatever he does, that is his focus. Well, it’s still worth exploring. Israel’s attack on Iran, how the U.S. becomes involved, and second order effects of the attack all have the potential to create rifts in the GOP.
Vance, like most politicians, is trying to have both ways. (As any VP would, Vance is showing loyalty to the President, showing he’s being listened to, and reassuring his base that the president is with them.)
If the U.S. joins Israel’s attacks on Iran (which might have happened by the time you read this), it could turn these GOP rifts that Vance is trying to straddle into chasms. As Trump’s heir presumptive, Vance will need to manage these potential fault lines within the GOP. But Vance, again like most politicians, is a weathervane (a weather-Vance?) These divides in the GOP are significant, and dark things crawl from chasms.
Really, Republicans Divided on Israel?
The GOP divide on the getting involved with Israel’s attack on Iran is essentially between the traditional national security hawks and evangelicals, who support Israel wholeheartedly, and MAGA. (These lines are not clean. Many in MAGA broadly support Israel, but don’t want to be involved in their war. At the same time, many evangelicals also consider themselves MAGA.)
One of the central tenets of MAGA is no foreign wars, no fighting on someone else’s behalf. The fallout from the Global War on Terror helped propel Trump to power and avoiding these foreign entanglements has been one of Trump’s core issues. Not on its face unreasonable positions and one very much shared by Vance.
The Vice Presidents positions on foreign military entanglements were evident in the SignalGate leaks where he complained that the U.S. campaign against the Houthis would, once again be the U.S. acting on Europe’s interest rather than its own. Vance’s skepticism of the U.S. role in the world was also in display in his Munich speech. Vance famously lit into Ukraine’s president Zelensky in the Oval Office and when India and Pakistan began skirmishing, Vance stated: …we’re not going to get involved in the middle of a war that’s fundamentally none of our business and has nothing to do with America’s ability to control it.”
In the days before Israel struck Iran, when the U.S. was pushing for negotiations, Vance was reportedly the leading figure in the administration opposing war with Iran. (The reports that the U.S. was pressuring Israel to hold off on attacking Iran may have been, at least in part, a ruse to persuade Iran that no attack was coming.) Still, Vance has defended and supported Israel. As it became evident that Israel was planning to attack Iran and there was a strong chance the U.S. would be pulled in, Vance refrained from merely opposing. The VP Rubio and Secretary Rubio ran an apparently effective process providing Trump options. (Sounds unbelievable—the Vance-Rubio alliance will be the subject of a future analysis.)
What Lies in the Darkness?
The avatars of the anti-war MAGA are probably Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson. The latter has publicly split with Trump over bombing Iran. Carlson has also done some propaganda work for Putin, hosted a friendly interview with a Holocaust denier, and only barely conceals the tropes of white nationalism. Vance is friendly and broadly aligned with Tucker Carlson, although he did criticize the Holocaust denying guest.
It doesn’t take a lot of searching to find deeply anti-Semitic sentiments in MAGA-world. My friend, the excellent Jen Golbeck, looks at MAGA forums which froth at the mouth about George Soros (long the subject of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories) and quickly jumps to conspiracies about the Mossad and fantasies about finishing Hitler’s work. Vance has echoed Trump about shrinking U.S. global commitments.
There are an array of second and third order effects of the campaign against Iran that could bring these forces to the fore.
The best case scenarios for the conflict with Iran are either the regime falling and being quickly replaced by a moderate provisional government that readily agrees to give up its nuclear program in exchange for an end to hostility and international aid. Another good scenario is the current regime approaches Washington prepared to make massive verifiable concessions in exchange for peace. (There are reports that Iran would has been reaching out to its neighbors about negotiating with the U.S. and ending the Israeli onslaught.) If limited U.S. strikes help that along, and Vance (as Trump has proposed) helps negotiate the end, the VP could emerge a hero.
But these are best case scenarios. The Iranian regime however is dominated by people who served in the long and bloody war with Iran in the 1980s—which took well over one million lives. They may not collapse or surrender so quickly. They will also have every incentive to attempt to build a nuclear weapon as ultimate insurance for regime survival. Prior to the attacks, Iran had the capabilities needed to develop a nuclear weapon and delivery system. The choice not to do so was strictly political. Israel will want to ensure its strikes do as much damage as possible.
It’s possible that Israel on its own, or with some U.S. help could set Iran’s nuclear program so far back that the conflict is a victory. But it is also possible that Iran will reconstruct its project and dig deeper facilities and rush towards a nuclear weapon. If that happens the U.S. could end up in a forever war with Iran, hunting and attacking new facilities. Alternately, the regime could collapse, creating yet another set of problems.
Even the base case scenarios have potential downstream effects that could be negative for the U.S. such as a regional power vacuum leading to greater conflict, terrorism, refugee crises, and high energy prices. The worst case scenarios could include all of these items, as well as a potential nuclear Iran, and U.S. casualties.
Conspiracy theories are like MadLibs, there is a basic plot that can be filled in with whatever groups, objectives, and plots resonate.
Israel attacked Iran to raise energy prices, trigger a global recession, and from which “globalist financiers” could profiteer.
Israel pursued regime change in Iran to spark a new humanitarian crises so that “globalists” could force the West to accept refugees and dilute Western culture.
All of these conspiracies will be super-charged if it looks like Israel cornered the U.S. into participating in their war.
We must all hope for the best outcomes in the campaign against Iran—perhaps a new regime that does not oppress its people and export terror. But J.D. Vance may inherit a GOP that’s worse off, more divided, and with even more violent offshoots.
Where will he stand then?