Vance: US and Israeli interests won’t always overlap; we don’t want war with Iran
Trump running mate appears to suggest Israel would support a war with Iran, highlights growing presence of GOP isolationist wing that is now represented on the presidential ticket
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance indicated Saturday that US and Israeli interests won’t always overlap, tying this stance to his opposition to a war with Iran.
Against the backdrop of Israel’s recent retaliatory strike against Iran, Vance was asked during a podcast interview on “The Tim Dillon Show” how the Trump administration would handle what could turn into a major war in the Middle East
Vance began his answer by stressing that Israel has the right to defend itself before adding — “But America’s interest is sometimes going to be distinct.”
“Sometimes we’re going to have overlapping interests, and sometimes we’re going to have distinct interests. And our interest very much is in not going to war with Iran. It would be a huge distraction of resources. It would be massively expensive to our country,” added the running mate of former president Donald Trump.
Vance did not go as far as to say that Israel backs a war against Iran, but his decision to stress his opposition to a potential war with Iran immediately after arguing that US and Israeli interests don’t always overlap suggested that Jerusalem would support such a war.
The remark highlighted the growing isolationist wing within the Republican Party that, in Vance, is now represented on the presidential ticket as well. The argument also appeared to run counter to ones voiced by more hawkish members of the GOP who have urged Israel to retaliate massively against Iran, including by targeting its nuclear facilities, in what could trigger all-out war.
Vance went on to argue that pro-Israel Americans were even “more militaristic” than Israelis in their response to Hamas’s October 7 onslaught.
“The Israelis were like, ‘Okay, Hamas just attacked us. We’re gonna go really screw Hamas up… There’s a humanitarian side of that, and we want to try to minimize civilian casualties.’ But you had Americans saying, ‘This attack happened on Putin’s birthday, so we need to go to war against Russia. And the Iranians funded part of this, so we need to go to war with Iran,'” Vance said.
“I don’t want Iran to get a nuclear weapon, and I think we should be… using all the influence we have to encourage them to not have a nuclear weapon… But we just have to be smart about it,” he continued.
“This is where smart diplomacy really matters,” Vance explained, pointing to the Trump administration’s brokering of the Abraham Accords in 2020.
He described the normalization agreements Israel signed with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco as an alliance of countries that “kind of hate each other” but decided to collaborate because they have a shared enemy in Iran.
Instead of the US starting a war with Iran, “let the Israelis and the Gulf Arab states provide the counterbalance to Iran,” Vance maintained.
“America doesn’t have to constantly police every region of the world. We should empower people to police their own regions of the world. One: We would save a lot of money. Two: We’d save a lot of focus.”
The Republican vice presidential nominee went on to argue that Vice President Kamala Harris talks publicly about trying to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties while advancing a policy “that maximizes those casualties.”
“They say that they’re pro-Israel, but they’ve pursued the pathway that has prolonged the war as long as possible, which is bad for Israel. They seem to be sleepwalking us into a war with Iran. It’s the dumbest of all possible worlds,” he added.
