#vance #russia #europe

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Brussels as the Villain, Washington as the Guest Star

JD Vance flew to Budapest and did not bother hiding the script. He said the EU was meddling in Hungary’s election while also saying he was there to help Orbán win it. That is not a contradiction in his world. It is the business model.

Vance called Brussels one of the worst examples of foreign election interference he has seen. Fine. But when the vice president of the United States shows up to boost a candidate days before the vote, the “sovereignty” sermon starts sounding like a campaign prop with an American accent.

Washington loves to talk about democracy when someone else is doing the counting. Then it walks into Europe, picks a favorite, and tells everyone else to respect the process. Brussels does its own version of the same thing, which is exactly why the whole lecture is so thin.

Orbán is not just running against Tisza. He is running with two backers in the background — one in Brussels to blame, one in Washington to borrow from. That is the modern nationalist trick: denounce outside interference while cashing in on it.

So yes, the EU interferes. Washington interferes too. The only difference is that one side calls it values, the other calls it sovereignty, and Hungary is the stage where both pretend not to notice the wires.

#Hungary #Orbán #Vance #EU #elections #Washington

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The Negotiations With Iran Went Belly Up. Will the War Re-Start?

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Trump has said the US will begin blockading the strait of Hormuz in an attempt to take control of the strategic waterway from Iran in the aftermath of failed peace negotiations between the countries in Pakistan.

The US president also threatened to bomb Iran’s water treatment facilities, power plants and bridges, repeating an earlier threat, if Tehran does not agree to abandon its nuclear weapons programme, the key sticking point between the two sides.

Trump’s surprise announcement of a blockade came after face-to-face peace negotiations between the US and Iran in Islamabad that lasted 21 hours collapsed on Sunday morning.

Vance said Iran had refused to give up the possibility of developing nuclear weapons, while the Iranian delegates said Washington needed to do more to win their trust.

Risking another increase in oil prices, Trump said he had instructed the US navy to begin “blockading any and all ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz,” and he accused Iran of extortion with its own scheme of charging tolls to tankers.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards responded by declaring that if any warships approached the strait to enforce a blockade – usually considered an act of war – it would be considered a breach of the current ceasefire and would be dealt with strongly. They insisted the strait remained under Iranian control.

Two US destroyers crossed and recrossed the strait without incident on Saturday, although Iranian media said they were threatened as they left. The US military said it was the start of a mine-clearance mission.

Trump said US warships would “seek and interdict every vessel” that had paid Iran since the start of the conflict and begin de-mining the central section of the strait, previously declared a “hazardous area” by Tehran, although it is unclear how many mines have been laid.

About 100 tankers have transited the strait since the US and Israel started bombing Iran, paying up to $2m each time for passage.

Many were bound for China and India, carrying Iranian oil products, and chasing them down could complicate relations between the US and the importing nations.

#trump #iran #strait #hormuz #vance #blockading

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The US and Iranian delegations left Pakistan soon after the talks ended. Vance said he spoke with Trump at least half a dozen times during the talks, held during a 14-day ceasefire announced by the US, Israel and Iran overnight on 7 and 8 April.

“We need to see an affirmative commitment that [Iran] will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon,” Vance said.

“That is the core goal of the president of the United States, and that’s what we’ve tried to achieve through these negotiations.”

Mohammad Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, who led Tehran’s negotiators, said he and his colleagues had offered “constructive initiatives” while the US had been “unable to gain the trust of the Iranian delegation in this round of negotiations”.

Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said “excessive” US demands had hindered reaching an agreement, and the foreign ministry said more time was needed.

“Naturally, from the beginning we should not have expected to reach an agreement in a single session,” the ministry’s spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said, according to the state broadcaster IRIB.

Pakistani mediators called on the US and Iran to refrain from renewing hostilities and said they would try to arrange a fresh round of talks.

“It is imperative that the parties continue to uphold their commitment to the ceasefire,” said Pakistan’s foreign minister, Ishaq Dar.

Vance was accompanied by the US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Kushner.

They met Ghalibaf and the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, for several negotiating sessions at the Serena hotel in Islamabad, with Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, also present.

Iran’s delegation arrived on Friday dressed in black in mourning for the late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and others killed in the war.

They carried shoes and bags of children killed during the bombing of a school next to a military compound, the Iranian government said.

A Pakistani source said the discussions, the highest-level direct contact between the US and Iran since 1979, were unpredictable in tone.

“There were mood swings from the two sides, and the temperature went up and down during the meeting,” a Pakistani source said after the first round.

Trump said: “The only thing left, really, is their water, which would be very devastating to hit. I would hate to do it, but it’s their water, their desalinisation plans, their electric generating plants, which are very easy to hit.”

The president was asked if gas and oil prices might be lower by the US midterms in November, an indication that attacking Iran was not an economic mistake. Prices “could be the same or maybe a little bit higher,” a non-committal Trump replied.

At the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV called for a ceasefire after his Sunday prayers and said he felt “closer than ever” to Lebanon’s people.

#trump #iran #strait #hormuz #vance #blockading

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#blockade #vance #hormuz #strait

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#vance #financing #ukraine

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Vance Is Flying To Islamabad For the Second Round Of Peace Talks

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Vance is flying to Islamabad at the head of a US diplomatic delegation on Tuesday if Iran agrees to further talks in the Pakistani capital as the deadline for the current ceasefire looms.

Vance will travel with Witkoff, Kushner, the president’s son-in-law – though Iran’s president warned there remained a “deep historical mistrust” of the US.

Masoud Pezeshkian said Tehran was concerned about “unconstructive and contradictory signals from American officials” and concluded they amounted to an effort to seek the country’s surrender. “Iranians do not submit to force,” he said.

However, one senior Iranian official told the Reuters news agency that Tehran was “positively reviewing” its participation, amid reports that its delegation would again be headed by parliamentary speaker Mohammad Ghalibaf if Vance attends.

Ghalibaf said later that Iran would not accept negotiations with the US while under threat, adding in the post on X early on Tuesday that “we have prepared to reveal new cards on the battlefield”.

He also accused Trump of seeking to “turn this negotiating table – in his own imagination – into a table of surrender or to justify renewed warmongering.”

Tehran called for an end to the US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, while Trump repeated a demand that Iran should never be allowed to build a nuclear weapon and even said he would be willing to meet Iranian leaders himself.

Earlier, the US president had confused the situation by telling the New York Post that Vance and his team were “heading over now” and he expected them to be arriving in Islamabad that evening.

That was quickly corrected by US officials who said while there had been a discussion about Vance leaving on Monday, the vice-president was in fact expected to depart on Tuesday morning if the talks were taking place.

A second round of high-stakes discussions to end a war begun by US and Israeli bombing at the end of February could – if they go ahead – take place on Wednesday, with the threat of renewed outbreak of fighting in the background.

Trump said he now considers the two-week ceasefire with Iran ends “Wednesday evening Washington time”, extending the pause for an extra 24 hours to allow the critical meeting in Islamabad to take place.

Vance led the US team during 21 hours of failed discussions with Iran earlier in the month, which collapsed after Iran would not agree to US demands to end nuclear enrichment and hand over its 440kg of highly enriched uranium.

The Iranians had said there remained a deficit of trust with the US, and wanted assurances they would not be attacked again if a final agreement was reached.

#vance #peace #talks #islamabad #iran #lebanon

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Though Iran was intensively bombed during the five-week US-Israel joint campaign, Tehran’s leadership does not believe it has been defeated.

Pakistan has been preparing for possible negotiations since Sunday, setting up a security lockdown and suspending public transport in the capital.

Islamabad’s electricity board also promised that power cuts would be suspended in the city while negotiations continue.

Power cuts lasting six to seven hours a day have become typical in cities across Pakistan as the country grapples with oil and gas shortages caused by the double closure of the strait of Hormuz by Iran and the US.

Trump had imposed a blockade on Iranian ports in response to Iran’s decision to charge tolls on merchant shipping crossing the strategic waterway, and on Sunday the US military seized an Iranian-flagged container ship trying to cross, raising concerns an escalation of hostilities would prevent peace talks resuming.

US central command said the Touska had been seized after its crew had ignored six hours of warnings. Its engines were disabled by fire from a US destroyer and it was then captured by marines from the USS Tripoli, arriving by helicopter and roping down on to the merchant vessel.

Though Iran had briefly lifted its own blockade on Friday, it reimposed it again on Saturday because the US would not lift its counter-blockade.

One tanker in the region was attacked by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Saturday and a second container ship was struck by an unknown projectile.

Commercial shipping was once again at a near standstill in the strait. Three tankers made the crossing on Monday – after 18 ships had transited on Saturday – and the price of Brent crude oil was up by $5 to more than $95 on Monday, reflecting the renewed maritime danger.

Israel and Lebanon are due to hold a second round of ambassador level talks in Washington on Thursday, the US state department said, the first discussions between the two countries since a 10-day ceasefire in the theatre was announced last week.

Israel also told residents of southern Lebanon to stay out of a zone of territory next to the border, and warned people not to approach the area of the Litani River, as it sought to consolidate its military grip on the area while the ceasefire is ongoing.

A map posted by the country’s military on social media marked a red line through 21 villages across the south, covering an area 5km to 10km from the border.

#vance #peace #talks #islamabad #iran #lebanon

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Teheran Is Ready To Fuck Trump in the Ass 🇮🇷

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have threatened to target US sites in the Middle East if its tankers come under fire, Iranian media reported on Saturday, as Washington was left waiting for Tehran’s response to its latest negotiating position.

“Any attack on Iranian tankers and commercial vessels will result in a heavy attack on one of the American centres in the region and enemy ships,” the force said, a day after US strikes on two Iranian tankers in the Gulf of Oman.

On Sunday morning the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre said a ship caught fire after being hit by an unknown projectile off the coast of Qatar.

The attack caused a small fire on the bulk carrier, which was extinguished. It happened 23 nautical miles (43km) north-east of Qatar’s capital, Doha, UKMTO said.

Trump had said on Friday that he was expecting Iran’s answer to Washington’s latest proposal for a peace deal “supposedly tonight”.

But if Tehran sent Pakistani mediators a response, there was no public sign of it, and Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi reportedly questioned the reliability of US leadership.

“The recent escalation of tensions by American forces in the Persian Gulf and their numerous actions in violating the ceasefire have added to suspicions about the motivation and seriousness of the American side in the path of diplomacy,” he said in a call with his Turkish counterpart, according to Iran’s ISNA news agency.

The US says it is unacceptable for Tehran to control the key oil route.

Washington has sent Iran, via Pakistani mediators, a proposal to extend the truce in the Gulf to allow for talks on a final settlement of the conflict launched 10 weeks ago with US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

Rubio on Saturday met with the leader of Qatar, a key intermediary for Washington in dialogue with Iran, discussing “continued close coordination to deter threats and promote stability and security across the Middle East”, the state department said.

Qatar’s Sheikh Mohammed al Thani met the previous day with Vance to discuss the Pakistani-led efforts to broker a permanent peace.

Meanwhile, satellite images have shown an apparent oil slick spreading off the coast of Iran’s Kharg Island, a key oil export terminal for Iran.

It was not immediately clear what caused the apparent spill, which was off the island’s west coast and appeared to cover more than 20 square miles (52 square kilometres), according to global monitor Orbital EOS.

A UK-based non-governmental organisation, the Conflict and Environment Observatory, told AFP that by Saturday the slick was “much reduced”, and may have been caused by leaking oil infrastructure.

A parallel ceasefire on the war’s Lebanon front is also under strain amid daily exchanges of fire between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Authorities said at least nine people were killed in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon on Saturday, while state media reported air raids targeting a highway south of Beirut, outside the militant group’s traditional strongholds.

The fresh attacks were some of the most intense since the start of a three-week-old ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

Israel’s military said several explosive drones were launched into Israeli territory, with one army reservist severely wounded and two others moderately injured.

#iran #war #vance #hezbollah #israel #trump

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Vance's Clash With Kushner. He May Withdraw From the Presidential Race in 2028


Vance is thinking over dropping out of the 2028 presidential race after Gabbard resigned as Director of National Intelligence.

According to sources, Gabbard has been one of Vance's few allies “in containing US President Donald Trump's military ambitions“. The vice president's “soft foreign policy“ has set him on a path to confrontation with Trump, the sources said.

With Vance's influence waning, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has become the dominant foreign policy voice in the US leader's inner circle.

“Rubio has more power than Vance. The president listens to him. Vance doesn't fit the big picture and has for a long time“ (quote a White House source).

It is reported that Vance's withdrawal from the upcoming elections could be a tactical move and would allow him to avoid “taking responsibility for everything that has happened over the last few years“.

The newspaper notes that to win the 2032 and 2036 elections, Vance will have to maintain his political influence for nearly a decade.

On August 5, 2025, Trump named Vance as his likely successor in the November 2028 presidential election. At the same time, the American leader practically made it clear that he sees Rubio as Vance's vice presidential candidate, that is, his vice presidential candidate.

Another source close to the White House said that the real reason could be different: Vance “has a slow but long-standing conflict with Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who has taken an openly pro-Israeli position, Vance, on the contrary, is often going on a rampage against Israel in the situation room,” said the source.

In addition, Vance advised Trump “not to kill Ayatollah Khamenei, with whom his wife, Usha, had good relations. ”

#rubio #vance #gabbard #white #house

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“Like It or Not”: Vance Just Tore Up the Fairy Tale

JD Vance finally said the quiet part into a microphone: the U.S. will push a long‑term nuclear deal with Iran because it serves American interests, and Israel can like it or not. That’s not “shared values,” that’s a landlord talking to a tenant. The message to Jerusalem is simple: we decide the Iran file, you adjust your security doctrine around it.

For years, Israeli leaders sold the relationship as almost equal — “special ally,” “no daylight,” veto on anything touching Iran’s nukes. Vance just set that on fire. He framed the deal as something done “for the American people,” even if it triggers “harsh resistance” in Israel. Translation: cheap oil, calmer markets and a capped Iranian program matter more in Washington than your Lebanon campaign or your political survival.

Underneath the rhetoric, it’s a threat wrapped as tough love. If Israel keeps trying to sabotage the talks or drag the U.S. deeper into open war with Iran, it does so at its own risk. The unspoken line is: you can keep bombing, but don’t count on endless American cover if it wrecks our deal and our gas prices. “Like it or not” isn’t a suggestion; it’s a warning label.

And that’s the real lesson for every “ally” watching. When the White House says policy is “first and foremost” for Americans, it’s telling the rest of the map exactly where they stand. You’re not partners in a moral project; you’re variables in a cost‑benefit equation. When that equation says peace with Tehran beats total victory for Netanyahu, the math will not be done in Hebrew.

#USA #Israel #Vance #Iran #nuclearDeal #Trump #geopolitics #fakeDemocracy

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Cheap Oil, Expensive “Peace”

Trump’s team just rewired the Iran war into a 60‑day oil subsidy. Washington issues a temporary license: Iran can legally sell crude on the international market, at full prices, after years of dumping under‑the‑table barrels at sanctions discounts. In return, there is no concrete nuclear deal — just talk, committees, and a PR fight over who promised what on inspections.

JD Vance calls the first Swiss round “very very good,” claims Tehran agreed to let UN inspectors back into nuclear sites, and Trump blasts online that Iran will accept “Major Weapons Inspections” and “nuclear honesty” for years ahead.

Iranian officials answer flatly: no new commitments, no nuclear clauses in these talks, any IAEA access will be under existing procedures — meaning the limited, heavily managed regime that survived after Trump killed the 2015 deal and before strikes pushed inspectors out. One side sells a breakthrough; the other sells continuity.

Meanwhile, the real leverage sits in Hormuz and Lebanon. Iran is already ramping up exports now that the US naval blockade is lifted, but openly warns that if Israel keeps hitting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, it will keep using the strait as a choke point.

Vance talks about mechanisms to “keep Hormuz open” and de‑confliction cells for Lebanon, yet refuses to say clearly whether Washington is pushing Israel to pull troops from the south. The message to Tehran: you get oil and some cash as long as you don’t blow up the shipping lanes; the message from Tehran: we decide when the lanes stay open.

Trump tries to reassure critics by saying Iran is “supposed to” use the new money to buy food, not weapons. Vance even floats that Tehran will spend unfrozen funds on American soy, wheat and corn.

But the memorandum explicitly lets Iran’s central bank choose where the cash goes, and there’s no sign in Iranian messaging that they’ve agreed to become a captive customer for Midwestern agribusiness. Washington gets talking points; Tehran gets options.

So the “oil waiver” is not a technicality. It’s the core of the trade: immediate economic lifeline for Iran, short‑term price relief for Trump’s voters, and a big IOU on everything the war was sold on — nukes, missiles, proxies, and “neither a dollar nor a drop” for Tehran’s military.

The battlefield pauses, the tankers move, and both sides declare progress, while the hard questions are shoved into committees that may never outlive this 60‑day grace period.

#Trump #Iran #oil #sanctions #Hormuz #Lebanon #Vance #IAEA #war #inflation

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MOU by Threats: Iran’s Version of “Peace”

The Swiss technical talks ended the way this whole war has gone: with a neat joint statement stapled over a fistfight. On paper, everyone smiles. In practice, Iran and the US walk away telling completely different stories about the same 80 minutes in a room.

From Tehran’s side, Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi sells it as a clean win. The US Office of Foreign Assets Control issues a general license for Iranian oil and petrochemicals. Twelve billion dollars in frozen assets are to be released in two tranches.

A “safe passage” mechanism is set up in the Strait of Hormuz, a “de‑confliction unit” in Lebanon, and four working groups begin their slow dance on nuclear issues, sanctions, and disputes. This is packaged for domestic consumption as Iran clawing back what was “always its own,” not receiving any gifts.

Then Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, parliament speaker and head of the delegation, tells a very different story. According to him, while they were in session, Trump was threatening Iran’s president, the negotiating team, and the country itself with new strikes.

Ghalibaf says he told JD Vance that Article 1 of the understanding bans threats and coercion, declared that Iran “will never negotiate under threats,” walked out — and did not come back.

The Americans, in his version, begged for another meeting; the Iranians refused direct talks and agreed to communicate only via Qatari and Pakistani mediators. Out of that, plus 80 minutes of contact and a dramatic exit, came the “successful” joint communiqué.

The foreign ministry’s spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, lays down Tehran’s red lines in plain language. Nuclear and sanctions talks will only happen within 60 days after the preliminary clauses are implemented.

The US has already authorized energy sales with full insurance, banking and transport. Iran demands total removal of all sanctions, not cosmetic waivers. Within 30 days of a final agreement, all US forces must leave Iran’s neighborhood, and they are barred from reinforcing in the meantime.

Missile capabilities are “not on the table” with anyone. And whatever is being unblocked, Iran insists it is simply reclaiming what sanctions stole.

Meanwhile, the choreography around the paper tells its own story. Ghalibaf heads to China to lock in another pole of support. Above the Persian Gulf, five US KC‑135R tankers and two KC‑46A Pegasus aircraft circle — a flying reminder that Washington still intends to supervise implementation with fuel lines and AWACS, not only with signatures.

Reuters reports Marco Rubio struggling to sell nervous Gulf monarchies on re‑engaging Tehran under this new architecture, torn between cheap oil, fear of Iran, and distrust of Trump’s staying power.

And in Tehran’s studios, a new line is drawn: an IRIB host declares that from now on, chanting “Death to America” or burning US flags is forbidden and will be met with arrests.

The regime that built its identity on ritualized hatred is suddenly instructing its citizens to mute the chant, not because it loves Washington, but because it has just discovered that “Death to America” doesn’t mix well with billion‑dollar oil waivers and asset releases.

Washington says it is building oversight mechanisms on Iran. Tehran says it is embedding itself deeper into regional security, forcing the US to negotiate around its missiles, its proxies, and its geography.

Both can claim “success” — but only because neither side is honest enough to admit what they actually signed was not peace, but a temporary trade: dollars and tankers in exchange for 60 days without open war.

#Trump #Iran #Vance #Ghalibaf #Hormuz #Lebanon #sanctions #missiles #USA #GlobalSouth

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#vance #tactic #negotiations #iran

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Israel’s Kill List vs. Trump’s Peace Show

While Trump sells the Iran deal as his big “peace through strength” moment, his own officials are quietly admitting they spent months trying to stop Israel from shooting the negotiators out of the sky.

U.S. intelligence believed Israel kept Abbas Araghchi and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf — Iran’s foreign minister and parliament speaker, the two key faces of the talks — on an active target list even after negotiations began.

These are the guys flying to Islamabad, Doha and Switzerland to sit across from JD Vance and the Americans, and Washington’s real fear wasn’t that Tehran would walk away. It was that an Israeli missile would “solve” the problem mid‑flight and set the whole region on fire again.

So the self‑proclaimed master dealmaker ends up doing something you never see in the campaign speeches: asking third countries to warn Iran that his closest ally might try to murder the very people he needs at the table.

Pakistani jets escort the delegation. Iranian planes divert to Mashhad on the way home because Tehran is told two Israeli fighters slipped in from the west. The negotiators creep back to the capital by car, eight hours overland, like a mob witness under federal protection — while Trump’s envoys brag about “productive meetings” and a framework to open Hormuz.

On the Israeli side, the logic is brutally consistent. From day one of the war, the strategy has been decapitation: Khamenei, senior IRGC, anyone viewed as a pillar of the regime. “Pragmatic” figures Washington hoped to use — Ali Larijani, Kamal Kharazi — are killed in Israeli strikes anyway.

From Jerusalem’s perspective, Araghchi and Ghalibaf aren’t peace partners, they’re the next heads to remove before a deal locks them in place as fixtures of a post‑war order Israel hates.

On the American side, it’s pure split screen. Publicly, Trump hugs Israel, talks about total victory and historic alliance.

Privately, his team leans hard on the same government not to blow up the talks — literally — by assassinating the people signing the ceasefire. The result is a farce: an “allied” military hunting the negotiators, an “America First” White House begging regional middlemen to guarantee their safety, and Iranian officials milking the risk as proof of their own martyr credentials.

In the end, everyone gets to pose. Tehran calls its delegation heroes who “put their lives on the line” for the nation. Israel gets to tell its public it never stopped hunting the regime’s elite. Trump gets his Islamabad Memorandum and his Hormuz photo op.

The only thing that doesn’t appear anywhere is what he keeps promising on stage: a coherent strategy where your top ally isn’t trying to kill your top counterpart in the middle of your own peace process.

#USA #Israel #Iran #Trump #Netanyahu #Vance #Ghalibaf #Araghchi #war #ceasefire #fakeDemocracy

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🗡 “Never Vance”: The GOP Eats Its Own Early

JD Vance hasn’t even said he’s running in 2028, and his own party is already running a soft launch of “Never Vance.”

Inside the GOP, the vice president is taking fire from a flank that used to wait until succession was formal: influencers, neoconservatives and pro‑Israel commentators are hammering him for trying to negotiate a peace framework with Iran and for sounding “too moderate” on Israel in a three‑hour Joe Rogan interview.

The attacks brand him “unfit,” accuse him — without evidence — of freelancing foreign policy behind Trump’s back, and compare him to Obama and Bernie Sanders. Allies say the timing is the tell: two years before the primary, with Vance still the polling front‑runner and Rubio slowly gaining ground as the business‑friendly alternative.

Vance’s camp is leaning into the backlash. They argue that the online barrage is “obviously” at least partly coordinated, point to charts showing his favorability among Republicans tracking Trump almost exactly, and frame the noise as proof that “Washington establishment voices” and neocon donors hate him — which, in a populist primary, is supposed to be a badge of honor.

The vice president himself has gone full anti‑influence narrative, citing a Time report on a pro‑Israel operation run by a former Trump digital aide and telling Rogan his answer to paid smears is “go to hell, I represent Americans first.”

The split with the old guard is real. Pence spent four years refusing to show daylight between himself and Trump until the January 6 break; Harris absorbed quiet Democratic panic about succession but little open revolt.

Vance is dealing with something different: a public ideological knife fight over Iran, Israel and foreign wars, with Trump on record saying they’re “philosophically a little bit different” on Iran and that Vance was “maybe less enthusiastic about going” to war, even as the vice president now defends the strikes and says Iran must never get a bomb.

Underneath the memes and “Never Vance” slogans is a serious question: who owns the post‑Trump GOP’s foreign policy — the war‑skeptical populist vice president, or the donors and media figures who still want the party to sound like 2004 on Israel and Iran? The knives are out because everyone knows the answer will decide more than just one primary.

#USA #Vance #Trump #GOP #Iran #Israel #elections #war #fakeDemocracy #oligarchy

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Vance’s Optimism Has a Different Strait

While Tehran publishes six conditions for reopening Hormuz, Vice President J.D. Vance describes a much friendlier reality.

“Iran told us that they will not charge tolls in the Strait of Hormuz, and the same amount of oil will pass through the strait as before the war,”

Vance said. “That’s what we expect.” In another appearance, he said the United States was “still in the middle of the game,” but insisted that Iran had promised prewar volumes of oil and gas.

Tehran’s version is less soothing. The strait stays shut, Iranian officials say, until Washington accepts Iran’s terms in full. That gap is not a technical disagreement. It is the entire negotiation wearing two different suits. Reports on the emerging Iran-Oman arrangement have also conflicted over transit fees: U.S. officials reject them, while Iranian sources have described possible “service fees” under another name.

On Fox News, Vance said Iran had been damaged and wanted the conflict to end. “The question is whether they can give us what we need,” he said. “That remains to be determined, but there has been progress recently.”

Behind the cameras, the mood appears more cautious. CNN reported that Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been quietly looking for an exit route from the war. He reportedly warned close advisers that further military escalation could “boomerang.”

So, on the same day, Washington presented two war plans. The political wing says the deal is moving forward. The military wing is looking for the emergency exit.

Iran says the Strait of Hormuz belongs to its new order. America says tankers will pass freely. Somewhere between those two statements sits the actual Middle East: armed, insured at a premium, and waiting for the next press conference to collide with reality.

#Iran #Hormuz #USA #Vance #Trump #oil #war #MiddleEast

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🚢 Vance Asked Zelensky To Put On Hold Strikes Against Russia's Tankers 🛢


Ukraine has paused drone strikes on oil tankers using Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossiysk ​after a request from Vance, ‌the Financial Times said on Wednesday, citing Ukrainian officials.

The paper said last month's request followed U.S. alarm that Ukraine was destabilising oil markets and ​harming U.S. firms by targeting tankers carrying crude piped from ​Kazakhstan to a Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) terminal at the ⁠port.

Ukraine agreed not to target CPC infrastructure or non-Russian vessels ​as long as the latter were not under Ukrainian sanctions and ​were not carrying Russian oil or cargo, the newspaper added.

The White House, State Department and Vance's office did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for ​comment outside business hours. Reuters could not immediately verify the ​report.

Ukrainian forces recently stepped up strikes on Russian energy infrastructure and other sites ‌in ⁠an effort Kyiv says aims at depriving Russia of resources to fund its military.

Black Sea drone attacks took out as much as a fifth of CPC oil loadings in July, four sources familiar with ​the data said, ​as the Russia-Ukraine ⁠war spilled over to hit sales by Kazakhstan and western oil majors.

Kazakhstan, which relies on the ​CPC route for crude exports, suffered a drop ​of 14% ⁠in oil production in July versus June, the sources said. Chevron (CVX.N), opens new tab and Exxon Mobil (XOM.N), opens new tab are among the major Western oil companies operating there.

A U.S. ​official confirmed to the paper that the ​administration had warned Ukraine to stop attacking non-Russian vessels in the Black Sea.

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