Vice President JD Vance last month said that he didn’t trust the Iranians to hold up their end of the deal. He was heading to Switzerland to try anyway.

The vice president has closely linked himself to the fragile peace talks. The political gamble’s risk came into sharper focus this week as the ceasefire unraveled and the U.S. launched fresh strikes on Iran, driving up oil prices and sparking new headaches for Republicans worried about the midterms.

Vance more than any other politician has his fate tied to the Iran war, but aides and allies believe his early skepticism of the conflict and his public doubts that Tehran could be counted on to make peace will prove his saving grace should hostilities linger.

“It wasn’t necessarily strategic from him, but it did have the side effect of putting him in a good place politically,” said a GOP operative supportive of Vance, who like others was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the vice president. “From a purely political perspective, all that really mattered was him being seen as attempting to bring the war to an end, while at the same time remaining loyal and aligned with the president."

Vance’s position as a central player in negotiations who voiced doubts about Iranian intentions allow him to take credit if talks progress, and say ‘I told you so’ when they stall. It’s a posture that earns him credit with Republicans who want the war to end immediately, and with the more hawkish wing of the party who favor a renewed bombing campaign. And most importantly for Vance and allies, he’s never appeared disloyal to President Donald Trump.

“How can you blame this on him?” said a Vance ally. “Failing at trying for peace, I don’t think gets you a penalty from rational people. In other words, the non-war crowd is not going to fault him for trying to end the war.”

But plenty of Republicans remain skeptical that Vance can defy the political gravity if another war in the mideast proves disastrous. While they acknowledge he is making the best of a bad hand, they insist voters will know who to blame for higher gas prices as 2028 comes into focus.

Vance aides “really believe that this is like some altruistic mission that they’re on to save the world, which is great. God bless them,” said a former Trump official. “But it’s like, dude, you just got handed a shit sandwich. You can’t cover up the taste too much.”

Gas prices inched closer to $4 a gallon on the news of the ceasefire’s demise. The average price for a gallon stood at $3.88 on Friday, according to AAA, reversing weeks of decline. On Friday, the International Energy Agency warned that "renewed exchanges of fire in the Gulf this week highlight the risks of not reaching a lasting peace agreement, which is a must for the normalisation in oil markets." Meanwhile, the number of ships crossing the strait hit a two-week low.

A second former official said the broken ceasefire was inevitable, and likely to be the status quo for months because the memorandum of understanding failed to address two key disagreements: the linkage of Lebanon to the Hormuz ceasefire, as well as control over the strait. And the official didn’t mince words, arguing that its likely failure will fall on the vice president.

“He is very, very much the person with the most to lose,” the former official said. “This MOU is likely a loser, and it’s his.”

On Friday, a senior U.S. official blamed the latest Iranian attacks on a rogue force within the country not aligned with the negotiators.

“It’s very important to characterize this accurately, and it’s not a reinterpretation of the MOU,” the official told reporters during a call set up by the White House.

"Certain elements within Iran decided, ‘oh wait, we gave up leverage that we didn’t want to give up,’” the official added. “They were reneging on the field because they felt caught off guard by how quickly oil and gas was moving through the southern lane.”

Vance has made similar claims in remarks to reporters: the deal is fine; the Iranians are the problem. In Wisconsin, this week, he told a cheering crowd that the “deal is very simple.”

“If they shoot at ships, we’re going to knock the hell out of them,” he said. “That’s the basic way it’s going to work.”

Vance’s efforts have been welcomed by some vocal anti-war MAGA stalwarts, who concede the vice president is in a political jam, bound by the limitations of his position as Trump’s No. 2.

Avoiding the limelight as the U.S. negotiated with Iran, they argue, would have been as much of a risk for Vance as the path he chose. Afterall, Vance’s silence in the days after the Trump administration first launched its assault on Iran was met with frustration from the anti-interventionist faction of the party.

“Ending the war is his surest path to the presidency — and the right thing to do — so he has to try,” said Curt Mills, editor of The American Conservative and a vocal opponent of war.

And more broadly, Vance allies dismiss the idea that a crumbling peace deal would hurt his chances in 2028, and that his risking political capital to secure a deal will be rewarded.

“Does anyone living here in a place called reality really think that any voters in two years are going to punish Vance for trying to end the war,” said the operative supportive of Vance. “Especially when he can say that he was aligned with Trump, and the moment the Iranians broke their side of the deal, they got hit 10 times harder? It’s hardly the picture of weakness, just the opposite.”

A GOP lobbyist and past Vance donor said the vice president never pretended that this would be easy. His team feels “very good” about how he handled a thorny political issue and “like they’ve done everything the right way.”

“Their view is the most important thing for JD was to stay aligned with the president and follow his lead, which he has done throughout this entire process,” the person said.

A White House official agreed, noting the administration is united in its thinking that the Iranians faced consequences for not holding their end of the deal.

In the call with reporters Friday, administration officials said that before talks can progress, the Iranians must issue a public statement that acknowledges all channels of the Strait of Hormuz are open, and that they won’t attack ships.

“They’re either going to give us that statement, or we’re not going to have a good outcome for them,” the senior official said.

The willingness to return to military force shows that Vance and the administration hear the concerns of those worried that the regime is exploiting the ceasefire in order to solidify its power, said Rich Goldberg, a former Trump NSC official and a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which has advocated for greater military action. Vance is driving toward the most important goal, which is reopening the Strait of Hormuz, whether through peace or strength, he said.

“There is only net benefit politically to saying ‘I got the Strait of Hormuz opened, I got gas prices down, and we have a path forward now that is beneficial for the United States, and this terrorist thug regime is not going to win,’” he said.

Vance, from the beginning, has sought to project both openness to a negotiated end to the war and skepticism that Iran would ultimately change its behavior. During a June White House press briefing, just days before he would travel to Switzerland to launch the two-month negotiating period established by the memorandum of understanding, the vice president said he didn’t know whether Iran would ultimately uphold its commitments.

“Maybe that’s true” that Iran will refuse to change, Vance said, but “isn’t it worth trying?”

Megan Messerly contributed to this report.



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