Vance Says Bombing Iran Is Different From Other 'Dumb' Presidents' Military Actions

On Sunday talk shows, the vice president made the case for bombing Iran—a notable shift from his previous anti-war rhetoric.

Over the weekend, the U.S. bombed three nuclear facilities in Iran. "The strikes were a spectacular military success" President Donald Trump said Saturday night. "Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated." Officials later had to walk back Trump's victory lap, admitting it was as yet unclear how much of Iran's stockpile may still remain.

But regardless of how it shakes out, the whole affair conflicts with the anti-war posture Trump rode into office on, especially for Vice President J.D. Vance.

"We are not at war with Iran. We are at war with Iran's nuclear program," Vance told both NBC's Kristen Welker and ABC's Jonathan Karl. To anybody who lived through the interminable war on terror—fought not just against a country or a terrorist group but against the concept of terror itself—Vance's explanation feels like a distinction without a difference.

Indeed, despite Trump's all-caps exclamation after the bombing that "NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE," Iran has since retaliated.

"We're incredibly grateful and proud of the American Air Force pilots who did an incredible job last night," Vance told Welker on Sunday. "It's really an incredible operation, a testament to the power of the American military, and I think it shows what can happen when you have that great American military in the hands of capable presidential leadership."

This is an awkward position for Trump, who said after he was reelected in November, "I'm not going to start wars, I'm going to stop wars."

But it's also awkward for Vance, an Iraq War veteran who has long praised Trump's opposition to American aggression. Endorsing his 2024 reelection bid, Vance praised Trump for "start[ing] no wars" in his first term; even when he openly opposed Trump for president, Vance noted his appeal on foreign policy, writing in 2016 that while Trump "is unfit for our nation's highest office…to those voters furious at politicians who sent their children to fight and bleed and die in Iraq, he tells them what no major Republican politician in a decade has said—that the war was a terrible mistake imposed on the country by an incompetent president."

This was markedly different from the tone Vance struck this weekend. "I certainly empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East," Vance told Welker. "I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then, we had dumb presidents, and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America's national security objectives."

Vance's that was then, this is now explanation is a little too pat. True, each of the other presidents of the last quarter century made "dumb" foreign policy moves: George W. Bush invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq, giving the U.S. two intractable conflicts in the Middle East we still can't seem to get out of. Barack Obama launched airstrikes against Libya in 2011 to support the overthrow of its despotic leader, Moammar Gadhafi—which destabilized the country, leading to a years-long civil war and the deaths of thousands of Libyans. Former President Joe Biden is still freshly in the rearview mirror, but his foreign policy was "utterly uninterested in any real resolution to America's lingering military entanglements in the Middle East," as Bonnie Kristian wrote in Reason.

But for something as consequential as American military action, the rationale has to be more compelling than "trust us, it'll be different this time." And Vance doesn't explain why those military actions were dangerous and counterproductive, bringing further U.S. involvement and destabilizing the region, while this one will turn out swimmingly.

In fact, Vance's mention of "dumb presidents" calls to mind Obama's comments in 2002, as the Bush administration made the case for war in Iraq. "I am not opposed to all wars," Obama, then a U.S. senator from Illinois, said at a Chicago anti-war rally. "I'm opposed to dumb wars." And yet as president, Obama rarely lived up to his rhetoric: While he withdrew troops from Iraq—what he once deemed a "dumb war"—in 2011, he would redeploy them in 2014.

Vance also told Welker the Iranian intervention "is not going to be some long, drawn-out thing. We've got in, we've done the job of setting their nuclear program back, we're going to now work to permanently dismantle that nuclear program over the coming years, and that is what the president has set out to do. Simple principle: Iran can't have a nuclear weapon."

But again, history demands skepticism of this sort of pledge. When Obama first announced action in Libya, he promised "that America's role would be limited." Nonetheless, amid a years-long civil war, the country became a haven for the Islamic State to operate. Obama later called Libya the "worst mistake" of his presidency, though he only admitted fault for the lack of planning, not for the strikes themselves.

Of course, Vance is not alone: Last year, in a post on X, Rep. Nancy Mace (R–S.C.) warned the Biden administration, "Congress alone decides if we go to war. I join my colleagues on both sides insisting we follow the Constitution." And yet after Trump bombed Iran without Congress' approval, Mace congratulated him. "Greatest president in American history!" she added. "I'm speechless. He's done what no one else could ever do."

Just weeks ago, Trump himself declared the "neocon" era was over and the U.S. was ready to do business with the Middle East. But just a day after bombing Iran, he posted on Truth Social in favor of regime change in the country.

The fact remains, it is completely defensible to oppose the unnecessary foreign wars, bombings, and drone strikes undertaken during the last quarter century. But it's foolish to insist that when Trump does it, that makes it okay. Past presidents may have been "dumb," but that doesn't make it a new war smart.