Vance Is Removed from the Iran Negotiations. What Comes Next? – President Donald J. Trump continues to demonstrate his indecisiveness and mercurial nature when it comes to a final resolution on the Iran War. After the Republican Party’s thorough defeat in the recent Midterm Elections, it looked as though Trump may have been looking for alternatives to another round of military escalations.
After all, any actual military expert will tell you that another round of escalation, akin to what we witnessed at the start of the Iran War earlier this year, will be both strategically inconclusive and will drain whatever remains of critical missile interceptors and key standoff munitions.
Vice President JD Vance attends a U.S. military capabilities showcase at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska for a military engagement, Tuesday, October 6, 2026. (Official White House Photo by Emily J. Higgins)
President Donald Trump meets with Vice President JD Vance and national security advisers on Ukraine, Monday, March 3, 2025, in the Oval Office. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)
The disarray after the Midterms saw Trump fire his longtime White House Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, and elevate Vice President JD Vance to chief negotiator for ending the Iran War. With the backing of Trump’s best friend from his New York real estate days, Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the last week made it look like the president wanted a peaceful resolution to the war.
A Third Aircraft Carrier
In fact, Trump purportedly got into the “shouting match from hell” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who immediately ordered Israel’s air force to prepare for the return of large-scale airstrikes against the Islamic Republic of Iran at any moment. Meanwhile, the USS Theodore Roosevelt approaches, bringing the number of aircraft carriers in the Middle East to three.
That third carrier will arrive likely this Sunday, November 15, giving the president more options for military strikes. But the Vice President, certain military leaders at the Pentagon, and other experts have all made clear that a renewed round of strikes will be strategically ineffective. It will not collapse the Iranian regime, and even if the US strikes only the suspected nuclear weapons facilities, it might still prompt such a massive retaliation by Iran that the Americans and Israelis find themselves in the escalation death spiral that people like Professor Robert Pape have been warning about.
Such an escalation spiral will not yield victory any more than the previous rounds of escalation did. It will just destroy more things and do more damage to the American military and global economy. It makes absolutely no logical sense for the Trump administration even to be entertaining the resumption of large-scale hostilities with the Islamic Republic at this point.
Economic Warfare Will Be Bad
I remain a believer that this round of escalation, unlike the previous ones, will ultimately be avoided. We will endure classic Trump flashes of rage, strategic incoherence, bluster, and puffery directed at the Iranians. Ultimately, though, Trump will likely opt for economic warfare and maintaining the rather leaky blockade. As my colleague at The American Conservative, Andrew Day, assessed in his column recently, that strategy does not take the world out of the woods.
In fact, Day worries it might make the escalation any rational actor should try to avoid more likely.
If the president chooses that route, though, it might at least buy time for some semblance of rationality to prevail — especially as the Democratic Party’s majority on January 3. Trump will become seriously constrained and be forced to redirect his attention to partisan fights rather than the Middle East. It is in that moment that some semblance of stability could be achieved in the region, especially if regional actors, like the Gulf Arab states, step up and take a leading role in demanding peace.
Vance Is Out as Negotiator
But Trump has now removed JD Vance from the negotiating team. He says he doesn’t need negotiations at all. Trump asserts that he’s already won. That the United States still controls Iran’s frozen assets. Of course, this is lunacy. The United States needs to get out of the war. With military power no longer viable, some form of negotiation is needed, leading to a new regional modus vivendi that balances US national security interests with the interests of the Islamic Republic and the Gulf Arab states.
Removing Vice President Vance from the negotiation team indicates that the president is seriously considering resuming hostilities. It will leave the Americans in a worse position, and it will completely damage the global economy, certainly the economies of the region, and it will lead to an escalation spiral that will culminate in the use of nuclear weapons.
JD Vance is the only rational actor remaining in this administration, and he was just removed from any meaningful role. Take from that what you will.
About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert is the Senior National Security Editor. He also manages The Weichert Brief on Substack. Weichert is the co-host of The Mario Nawfal Show on Twitter/X. He is the author of four bestselling national security books, most recently A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine (Encounter Books). His next book, Fortress Americas: A New Monroe Doctrine (Tucker Carlson Books), is due out December 8. Follow him via Twitter/X @WeTheBrandon.
