Vance takes center stage in faltering Iran ceasefire

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Vice President Vance has quickly become a central figure in trying to maintain a shaky ceasefire in a war that he has reportedly been skeptical about from the start.

Vance is set to travel to Islamabad, Pakistan, on Saturday along with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, as the trio attempt to cement a two-week ceasefire and bring an end to hostilities with Iran that have persisted for nearly six weeks.

The truce, announced by Trump on Tuesday night, is off to a troubled start, with Iran continuing to fire on Gulf states on Wednesday and Israel launching waves of deadly strikes on Lebanon.

Vance’s deep reservations about foreign entanglements, as a veteran of the Iraq war, seems to have given him credibility with Iranian officials who have lost trust in Witkoff and Kushner after failed talks before the war.

No one in the president’s inner circle was more concerned about the prospect of war with Iran, or did more to advise against it, than the vice president, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.

He reportedly cautioned during a high-level meeting in February that a war on Iran could cause regional chaos, alienate Trump’s supporters and deplete U.S. weapons stockpiles. He thought a war to enact regime change would fail and pushed for limited but overwhelming action, aware that Trump intended to intervene in some way.

Two months later, Vance is the point man in efforts to bring an end to the conflict.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Al Jazeera in an interview last week before the ceasefire was reached that he had received messages from Witkoff concerning peace talks, but “the trust level is at zero.”

A source told Reuters at the time that Trump authorized Vance to communicate with “intermediaries” that the U.S. would be open to a ceasefire in exchange for a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and other demands.

With the president’s deadline for Iran to agree to open the strait or face devastating attacks on its energy infrastructure approaching Tuesday, Vance was involved in securing the deal, having played a “key role” in talks from the start, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

Israel, which wasn’t a party in those talks but agreed to halt attacks on Iran, instead pounded Lebanon — where it is fighting Hezbollah, Iran’s most powerful proxy group — on Wednesday. Israel struck major commercial and residential areas in central Beirut, killing more than 250 people, according to Lebanese authorities, in the deadliest day of the conflict.

Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who mediated the talks, said it is. Iranian leaders pointed to Sharif’s public statement in arguing Israel was violating the ceasefire and announced the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed until the attacks stop.

Vance sought to play damage control on Wednesday afternoon, calling it a “legitimate misunderstanding” in remarks to reporters, The Hill’s Julia Manchester reports.

“I think that the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn’t. We never made that promise,” he said. “That said, the Israelis as I understand it…have actually offered to frankly check themselves a little bit in Lebanon because they want to make sure that our negotiation is successful.”

Araghchi said the U.S. must choose between the ceasefire or continued war.

“It cannot have both,” the foreign minister said in a post on the social platform X. “The world sees the massacres in Lebanon. The ball is in the U.S. court, and the world is watching whether it will act on its commitments.”

▪ The Hill: Strait of Hormuz, Lebanon emerge as obstacles to ceasefire.

Meanwhile, Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have launched drone attacks on major areas, leading the State Department to advise Americans to leave the country. And multiple Gulf states said Wednesday that they have intercepted missiles and drones from Iran.

Vance’s role as peacemaker has already brought skepticism from hawkish figures in Trump’s coalition.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of Trump’s top advocates in Congress, expressed concern about the basis for the talks.

“I look forward to the architects of this proposal, the Vice President and others, coming forward to Congress and explaining how a negotiated deal meets our national security objectives in Iran,” Graham said in a post on X.

Whether Vance, who has been viewed as a potential front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination in 2028, can help keep the president’s base together amid what has been a divisive conflict will be tested in the weeks and months ahead.

This moment could be an opportunity for the vice president to prove himself on the global stage less than a year before the next presidential election cycle gets underway. But it’s off to a rocky........

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