JD Vance didn’t want the Iran war. Now he has to own the ‘peace deal’

June 17, 2026 — 11:06am

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Lindsey Graham, the uber-hawk Republican senator from South Carolina who perhaps more than anyone else in Congress urged Donald Trump to start the war against Iran, is also one of the president’s most vocal sycophants. No matter what Trump does – bomb or not bomb – Graham can be relied on to chime in with praise.

But when it comes to the memorandum of understanding with Iran, Graham has barely mentioned Trump’s name. On his social media feed, he described Vice President JD Vance as “the architect of the deal”, and said it was imperative that Vance “and his negotiating partners” present the final agreement to Congress.

Hours after announcing the deal was done, Trump left the country bound for the G7 in France. Vance was left to sell the agreement to Americans in a string of morning and evening television appearances.

Fair enough, perhaps – it was Vance, along with Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who negotiated the settlement with the Iranians and their intermediaries.

Politically, though, it places Vance in an interesting position. The vice........

© The Age