HIGH STAKES FOR PEACE – AND FOR POLITICS
It’s the highest-stakes moment thus far for Vance, who spent much of last year as more of a background player in the Trump White House, especially as others like Elon Musk and Rubio took turns as ever-present advisers for the president.
But Vance’s portfolio is fattening fast, first with a mission to root out fraud in government programs at home and now to help solve a US war in the Middle East, where complicated doesn’t even begin to describe things.
Vance, who served in the Iraq War while in the Marines and spent two years as a US senator for Ohio and a little more than one as vice president, has little diplomatic experience.
On Wednesday, he dismissed speculation that the Iranians requested that he join the talks, telling reporters: “I don’t know that. I would be surprised if that was true. But, you know, I wanted to be involved because I thought I could make a difference.”
Jonathan Schanzer, a former Treasury Department official who is now executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish Washington think tank, said Vance, with little experience on Iran policy, is an interesting choice to lead the delegation.
Trump has noted his vice president was “less enthusiastic” than other top senior officials in the Republican administration, making Vance an intriguing interlocutor for the Iranian side, Schanzer said.
“I think they probably prefer him knowing that his perspective on foreign intervention is one of scepticism,” Schanzer said of the Iranians.
“I do think that he’s going to need some help. I don’t think he’s ever been engaged in negotiations with this kind of weight, this kind of seriousness. This is as serious as it gets.”
The White House has pushed back against the characterisation that Iran wanted Vance in the talks, casting it as an effort to hurt negotiations.
The White House has not detailed who will be in the talks besides Vance, Witkoff and Kushner, but Kelly said officials from the National Security Council, State Department and Pentagon “will also play a supportive role.”
During early rounds of indirect nuclear talks with the Iranians before the war, Democrats and some nuclear experts questioned whether Kushner and Witkoff had enough technical knowledge.
The White House has not said whether the pair, whom Trump has entrusted with some of his most difficult negotiations since returning to office, had a nuclear expert with them for those talks.