Vice President J.D. Vance said on Thursday that the U.S. war on Iran is not a war. “I wouldn’t call it a war,” Vance said after being asked during a White House press briefing about whether the fighting could end before voters cast their ballots in the Nov. 3 congressional elections. “Right now, there is no active shooting.” AP notes that Vance’s assertion came even as Iran fired at U.S. Gulf ally Kuwait on Thursday as it continued to retaliate for rounds of U.S. strikes on Iran earlier in the week. Furthermore, U.S. Central Command reported Sept. 5 that they had fired on three Iranian oil tankers.
Also not reported by AP is that a de facto state of war does indeed exist between the U.S. and Iran as long as there’s no agreement to end it. As for the U.S. naval blockade, the action itself is defined in international law as an act of war.
The next day, President Trump doubled down on Vance’s claim. Asked during an Oval Office exchange about Vance’s comments, Trump said U.S. strikes on Iran are now “intermittent” and “a lot of people don’t call it a war.”
“I can understand what he’s saying,” Trump said of Vance. He added: “I call it a military conflict, because it’s small potatoes for us. It’s not a big thing.”
AP notes that the conflict has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $37.5 billion and left 18 U.S. service members dead. However, among the elements missing from its reporting is that Trump has no idea how to end a war that he started. In that vein, Axios reported on Friday that the administration is working on a post-war plan which amounts to an expansion of the Abraham Accords that a few Arab states have signed with Israel, one explicit aim of which is to contain Iran.
According to Axios’s sources, three main elements have been raised as possible parts of the strategy: 1) Creating a regional alignment among U.S. allies to contain Iran, with the U.S. as a guarantor; 2) Making a concerted effort to bring the regional fallout from the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks closer to a conclusion by securing the next phase of Trump’s Gaza plan, reaching a security agreement between Israel and Syria, and implementing the Israel-Lebanon agreement; and 3) Expanding the Abraham Accords and reaching a Saudi-Israeli normalization agreement.
