Vance says US and Israel's 'interests diverge' on Iran nuclear issue: What to know
The rare admission by top Trump administration official comes as polling show US alignment with Israel in war against Iran is political baggage among a growing number of Republican voters.
WASHINGTON — US Vice President JD Vance acknowledged publicly for the first time on Monday that the US and Israel are not in lockstep when it comes to strategic objectives in their war against Iran.
“We have a lot of shared interests, but we also have some situations where our interests diverge,” Vance told Fox News host Jesse Watters on Monday night.
“I think where the president has been very clear here is that while Israel obviously has some objectives that it has, the United States’ main objective in Iran is to ensure that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon,” Vance said.
Why it matters: It’s the first public acknowledgement by a top Trump administration official that Washington and Jerusalem do not share an end goal in Iran. But it’s not the first indication of the strategic gap between the two allies.
Early in the war, President Donald Trump rejected a detailed plan presented to his administration by Israeli intelligence that would arm and support Kurdish fighters based in Iraq to overthrow Iran’s government. The decision frustrated top Israeli officials, Al-Monitor first reported.
In the war’s second week, Israeli warplanes began bombing major Iranian oil manufacturing facilities to the chagrin of US military commanders, who had long planned to leave those resources and infrastructure intact for a future Iranian government to generate national wealth and build postwar legitimacy.
Behind closed doors, Pentagon officials across several US administrations have argued that military force alone is unlikely to successfully cut off Iran’s possible pathways to nuclear weaponization, despite urging from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governments for the US to deploy its military option.
The context: Vance’s comments come just days after Israeli warplanes struck the outskirts of Beirut, briefly restarting the war with Iran. Trump had reportedly warned Netanyahu not to do so as Washington pushes for negotiations over the nuclear issue.
Israeli officials are increasingly worried that Trump’s diplomatic overtures will leave the Islamic Republic with sufficient ballistic missile capabilities to pose a long-term threat.
Following a brief but intense exchange of strikes between Iran and Israel on Sunday, an anonymous Trump administration official told CBS News that for the first time, the White House had not ordered the US military to defend Israel from Iran’s retaliation. US ship-based and ground-based missile defenses did so anyway, Al-Monitor first reported.
Political baggage: Vance’s remarks show a rare willingness to reveal daylight between the two allies during wartime.
Domestic opinion polls in the US increasingly show the war with Iran and US military support for Israel are becoming a liability for the Trump administration among a growing number of Republican voters.
NBC reported on Saturday that the Pentagon had raised its internal counterintelligence threat level for Israel after a number of attempts at espionage, including efforts to hack the phones of top US military officials visiting Israel, The New York Times reported.
