US Vice President JD Vance emphasized on Monday that despite a deep alignment of interests between the United States and Israel, the Trump administration’s strategy toward Tehran will ultimately prioritize American national interests over external preferences.
Speaking to Fox News’ Jesse Watters, Vance said, “The Israelis and the United States, we have a lot of shared interests.”
“But we also have some situations where our interests diverge, and I think where the president has been very clear here is that while Israel obviously has some objectives that it has, the United States’ main objective in Iran is to ensure that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon,” he added.
Vance asserted that geopolitical maneuvers over the past eighteen months have successfully established the conditions required to broker a durable resolution regarding Tehran’s atomic program.
“Over the last year and a half, we’ve created the space necessary where the president believes – and I think he’s right – that we can get a long-term settlement to Iran’s nuclear issue,” Vance said.
“Now, Israel may like that, they may not like that, but fundamentally, we think this is in the best interest of the United States of America,” he said, adding that Washington will continue pursuing that goal because “that’s what the president of the United States was elected to do.”
Earlier on Monday, Trump said that the US will declare “total victory” over Iran in about two weeks.
The President made the comments at a telerally supporting Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
“Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, and it’s as simple as that. They cannot have, the destruction is so powerful, they cannot have a nuclear weapon. And Lindsey has been fighting with me all the way, all the way for that,” Trump said.
“We’ve been a very tough team, and I think we are winning that battle, but you’re really going to win it over the next two weeks when we declare total victory. It’ll be a total victory. It’ll happen very soon. And oil prices will come tumbling down,” he added.
As recently as last Wednesday, Trump commented on the talks with Iran and speculated that a deal could be reached within days.
“I hear the negotiations with Iran are going very well. If a deal happens with Iran it could be done over the weekend,” Trump told reporters, adding that Iran is “close” to signing the papers.
Trump stated he wants Iran’s enriched uranium transferred into US hands and expects that to happen in the near future.
However, Mohsen Rezaei, a top military advisor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, told CNN on Friday that the diplomatic track with the US has stalled.
Rezaei asserted that “the negotiations are at a deadlock and (US President Donald) Trump must break this deadlock,” adding that “the ball is in Trump’s court.”
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