U.S. officials: If Iran cannot reach an agreement with Wanstad, they will get no deal.

Ask AI · How Does Vance’s Anti-War Stance Affect the Progress of U.S.-Iran Talks?

The U.S.-Iran war has continued for nearly 1 month, and the United States and Iran are expected to return to the negotiating table. At the same time, there are reports that Iran wants to speak with U.S. Vice President Vance because he is believed to be an anti-war figure within the U.S. government.

In a report published on March 27 by the U.S. news website Axios titled “Vance’s Biggest Challenge: Achieving Peace With Iran,” the outlet reported that Vance is about to take on what is the most important assignment of his professional career: leading the United States to end a war that he initially did not even think would be a good idea.

Vance has spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu multiple times, met with Gulf allies to discuss the war, and has conducted indirect communications with Iran. He is expected to become the United States’ chief negotiator in the peace talks.

According to information from the United States and Israel, Vance is highly skeptical of Israel’s optimistic assessment of how the war would unfold before it began, and at present it is still expected that the war will continue for several more weeks.

Vance’s advisers believe that someone inside Israel is trying to undermine his standing, possibly because they think his position is not tough enough. Israeli officials have denied this claim.

On the 26th, President Trump formally announced Vance’s role at a Cabinet meeting, instructed him to report the latest developments in the situation involving Iran, and noted that he is moving the negotiations forward together with Wittekoff and Kushner.

White House officials said that Vance’s seniority within the government and his well-known stance against endless overseas conflicts make him more appealing than Wittekoff and Kushner—the U.S. Middle East special envoys in the previous two rounds of failed negotiations—thus making him the ideal negotiating partner for Iran.

For that reason, Wittekoff recommended that Vance serve as the chief negotiator.

A senior U.S. government official said, “If the Iranians can’t reach an agreement with Vance, they won’t get any agreement. He is the best person they can find.”

A White House official tried to calm external speculation, saying that Wittekoff and Kushner “are still working to get it done, and if the talks make progress, the vice president is also prepared to step in—but we’re not there yet. The Iranians need to decide whether and how they will participate in the negotiations.”

On March 26, Trump extended the deadline for negotiations with Iran, while mediators from Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey continued working to arrange face-to-face talks between both sides.

Iranian officials told the mediators that they are still waiting for approval from the top leadership. If a summit is held, Vance may sit down alongside the Speaker of the Iranian parliament, Galibaf.

It was reported that if diplomatic efforts fail, the U.S. government is also considering taking major military action.

Axios also said in another report that sources revealed that in a recent call with Netanyahu, Vance criticized the latter’s predictions about the Iran war as “too optimistic,” and that Netanyahu “exaggerated the likelihood” of an Iran regime change.

An Israeli source and a U.S. source said that on the 23rd local time, Vance had a “tense” call with Netanyahu. During the call, Vance criticized that many of Netanyahu’s prior predictions about the war had proved “too optimistic,” especially regarding prospects that a popular uprising would erupt inside Iran and topple the current regime.

“Before the war, Netanyahu portrayed this conflict to Trump as something very easygoing, and the likelihood of the regime change he described was far higher than the reality. But Vance has always seen through that kind of claim,” the U.S. source said.

The source also said that in the U.S.-Iran “ceasefire talks,” Vance “played a leading role,” while Israel is trying to sabotage the negotiations.

In addition, according to a previous report by the UK’s The Daily Telegraph, Iran refused to accept Wittekoff and Kushner as U.S. negotiating representatives, accusing the two of “betraying trust.”

A source from a Gulf country said that Iran will not sit at the same negotiating table with Wittekoff and Kushner because, as U.S. negotiating representatives, the two held the third round of indirect talks with Iran in Geneva, Switzerland, on February 26. Soon after the talks ended, the U.S. launched a military strike against Iran.

The source also revealed that Iran is more inclined to have U.S. Vice President Vance act as the negotiating representative and hold talks with the Speaker of Iran’s Islamic parliament, Kalibaf.

It is understood that although Vance has not publicly criticized Trump’s approach to the war with Iran, privately he is not very supportive of the war. Trump himself has also publicly said that Vance’s enthusiasm for starting a war with Iran “isn’t as high as his own.”

“I have to say, he’s a little different from me in terms of ideology,” Trump said. “I think his enthusiasm for starting a war might not be that high, but he is also fairly proactive.”