Washington DC operates at a breakneck pace in Donald Trump’s second term. The president’s sense of urgency, short attention span, and tendency to bounce from crisis to crisis means there are few other options.
But even for an American political class that has grown accustomed to tapdancing on quicksand, the last 48 hours have stood out as something exceptional. On Tuesday morning, America stood ready to annihilate “a whole civilisation” unless Iran capitulated to the USA’s terms.
By that night, the US and Iran had agreed a ceasefire deal Trump was happy to declare a “total and complete victory”, and the strikes were off. Even by Wednesday morning, the terms of that victory looked unusual.
If the war was a US victory, why had President Trump accepted that Iran’s military would control access to the Strait of Hormuz? Why did Iran seem to expect an $80 billion a year windfall as a result? And why, after a US victory, did Iran seem securely controlled by a new, hardline Ayatollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard?
These looked set to be the burning questions of the day, if not for the next few weeks. Resolving them would establish whether Donald Trump was so eager to be able to declare the war over and won that he would accept terms which even a few weeks ago would have been seen as a total victory for Iran – or whether commentary suggesting that Trump had admitted defeat might goad the president back into war.
But these questions might already prove to be academic. If there was truly a ceasefire, few people on the ground seemed to have noticed it in practice. The vital east-west Saudi Arabian oil line was struck with a drone, while Kuwait and the UAE also reported attacks. Iran itself came under missile fire. And Israel bombarded the Lebanese capital of Beirut with multiple barrages of missile attacks, killing hundreds.
The strikes inevitably accelerated arguments over what the terms of the confusingly-struck ceasefire deal actually were. Iran and Pakistan believed the terms of the ceasefire clearly included Lebanon. On Wednesday evening, JD Vance said the US had never agreed to that.
In response, Iran said it would not be opening the Strait of Hormuz after all, given the deal seemed to be off. Other disagreements were also bubbling to the surface: Iran said the framework of the agreement allowed it to continue enriching uranium. The White House said the opposite, and that it would be seizing what remained of Iran’s nuclear material.
In 48 hours, the US and Iran have gone from the brink of all-out assault, to peace, to who knows what – but the political reality is that Maga desperately needs this war to be over. Donald Trump is a lame duck president, a fact that will become increasingly apparent once the midterms are over and the pre-game for the primaries begins in earnest.
Donald Trump’s base, already fractious over Epstein, is in tumult over the Iran conflict. Onetime allies or boosters like Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nick Fuentes and Alex Jones have broken with Trump publicly over it. Other prominent Maga figures are staying loyal in public but know that if the political project has any hope of outliving Trump, Iran needs to be a dim and distant memory.
No one is surer of that than Vice President JD Vance, an endlessly ambitious politician all but certain to run for the presidency in 2028. Vance is a genuine isolationist, who has kept the lowest possible public profile during the Iran conflict, to avoid association with it.
As Trump’s VP, Vance’s prospects of winning a Republican primary rely on being seen as Trump’s successor, and that in turn relies on Trump still being a popular figure and a kingmaker in the moment. If the US economy is ruined by chaos in the Middle East, or if America gets bogged down in a lengthy conflict, Trump’s political legacy will be torched.
Vance’s career is dead if he breaks with Donald Trump, and it’s dead if the Iranian conflict continues while he stays loyal. He needs, for his own sake if no one else’s, for this war to be over.
In this, he may find allies within the Maga movement among people who are usually his rivals: Marco Rubio’s own pathway to the presidency is doomed if Iran drags on, while even the factions publicly opposing Trump on Iran need the conflict to be over if there is going to be a Maga coalition to reunite to win the next election.
Donald Trump wants to be loved, wants to win, and wants a legacy. The coterie around him wants Maga to survive so they can use it for their own ends. All of them need to find a way out of Iran. Trump, like so many presidents before him, is discovering wars are easier to start than they are to end. But it’s Vice President Vance who may end up paying the price for that lesson.
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