Vice President JD Vance warned podcaster Joe Rogan in an interview published Wednesday that the administration is trying to establish a deal with Iran to stop a war and possible refugee crisis but claims a determined faction of the Republican Party wants to sabotage it at all costs.
"There are people who are super hawkish in the American system who have attacked the deal and, frankly, in some ways have tried to derail the deal. And what I always say to those people is, 'What is your proposal? What is your actual argument?'" he said as he spoke to Rogan about the recent efforts to negotiate an end to the military conflict with Iran and prevent it from becoming a larger war.
He offered the Strait of Hormuz as one key example of how perilous the situation is, where Iran can shut down 25% of the world's energy supply with cheap drones that are notoriously difficult to intercept.
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Vance claimed some opposing Republicans and their allies who don't want negotiations ultimately want to "just bomb them to oblivion" or to somehow achieve regime change in Iran.
"But, look, what is our experience with doing that?" Vance responded.
"It's not good," Rogan said.
"It's not good," Vance agreed.
Vance argued that sending a ground invasion of 150,000 troops is "basically saying that the U.S. military should do the job for the Iranian people. We're not in that business anymore. We're just not."
The other outcome Vance warned of is "the Libya outcome," where, by the United States toppling dictator Moammar Gadhafi, "Libya basically turned into a failed state. You had a refugee crisis. You had people pouring into Europe, pouring into other parts of Asia, other parts of Africa. You had a lot of violence. A lot of terrorism came from that.
"I do think that there are people who would like that to be the outcome in Iran," Vance warned. "But then I say again, what is in our interest? How is it in the United States' interest to have 94 million desperate people flooding into Europe, flooding into the United States, to have the sort of terrorist infrastructure that can get established when you fan terrorists all over the world? We've run this experiment before."
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Rogan recalled the theory that the downfall of Gaddafi was the spark that began the global migrant crisis flooding Europe in the 2010s.
"Exactly. That and Syria, another failed state that was created by bad Middle Eastern policy," Vance confirmed. "So, there is precedent for the United States doing this. Every time that it has happened, it's caused a refugee crisis. It's caused a spike in terrorism. And it's also, not incidentally to the moral considerations, it's led to a lot of innocent civilian deaths."
While Vance touted that Trump gathered a historic big tent coalition, he said the "hawkish" wing of it has repeatedly rebuked Trump when he wavers from their agenda.
"What has really annoyed me about the hawkish side of this thing is they attack any effort to negotiate. They attack the president. They attack me personally," he said, claiming they take the attitude of, "'Donald Trump is betraying me.'"
"Well, wait a second. If you want to have a hawkish policy towards Iran, the idea that Donald Trump has betrayed you because he's also trying to negotiate to get a good outcome for the American people is crazy," Vance replied.
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He warned that, in the recent memorandum of understanding, there was an agreement that the United States would allow neighboring Gulf countries to invest $300 billion in Iran if it met its obligations. But the pro-interventionist faction of the Republican Party, he said, is deliberately lying and claiming the United States will be the one giving Iran $300 billion instead.
While the American people are in favor of their military being used to accomplish clear objectives, he said they have no appetite for open-ended wars like those of recent decades.
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