Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) took a hawkish tone toward Iran in an interview following the news that he had been selected as former President Trump’s running mate for the November election.
“The most important part of the Trump doctrine of foreign policy is you don’t commit America’s troops unless you really have to, but when you do, you punch and you punch hard,” Vance told Fox News’s Sean Hannity at the Republican National Convention on Monday.
“A lot of people recognize that we need to do something with Iran but not these weak little bombing runs,” Vance said, apparently referring to President Biden’s airstrikes against Shia militias in Iraq and Syria.
“If you’re going to punch the Iranians, you punch them hard, and that’s what [Trump] did when he took out Soleimani,” he said, referring to the 2020 assassination of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani.
Vance claimed the assassination “brought peace” to the region, but the incident brought the US and Iran to the brink of a full-blown war. Iran responded by firing a volley of missiles at a US base in Iraq, which caused traumatic brain injuries but didn’t kill any Americans. Two months later, in March 2020, a rocket attack in Iraq the US blamed on Iranian-allied Shia militias killed two US troops and one British soldier.
Vance accused Biden of “doing nothing” about Iran. “You have the infrastructure there, sitting there, to weaken Iran, to strengthen our ally Israel. Joe Biden’s done nothing with it, Donald Trump would reinvigorate it,” he said.
Discussing Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, Vance claimed Biden was not helping Israel even though the president has provided huge amounts of military aid and significant political support. “Joe Biden has done nothing to help our ally Israel. Joe Biden has made it harder and harder for Israel to win that war. He has prolonged the war to take out Hamas,” Vance said. He has previously said Biden was “micromanaging” Israel’s military operations in Gaza, signaling he favors giving the Israelis whatever they want.
Vance discussed other foreign policy issues, including the conflict in Ukraine. He has been a leading critic of the proxy war since he joined the Senate in 2022, and he told Hannity that he believes Trump will be able to negotiate a deal with Russia and Ukraine to “bring this thing to a rapid close.”
The Ohio senator said ending the war in Ukraine would allow the US to focus on “the real issue, which is China.” Vance described China as the “biggest threat” facing the US, which aligns with the view of the Pentagon.