Vance says difference between this Middle East attack and others is that previous presidents were ‘dumb’

Vice President assures Americans Iran conflict will not become ‘drawn-out’ commitment like War on Terror

Vice President JD Vance has attempted to draw a distinction between Donald Trump’s attack on Iran and George W Bush’s War on Terror by arguing that “back then, we had dumb presidents.”

Speaking to Kristen Welker on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday morning, hours after the U.S. launched airstrikes against three Iranian nuclear sites in support of Israel’s Operation Rising Lion offensive, Vance attacked Bush’s administration and those of Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden without directly naming them.

“I certainly empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East,” he said.

JD Vance appears on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday June 22 2025 (Meet the Press/NBC)

“I understand the concern, but the difference is that, back then, we had dumb presidents and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America’s national security objectives. So this is not going to be some long, drawn-out thing.

“We’ve gone in, we’ve done the job of setting their nuclear program back, we’re going to now work to permanently dismantle that nuclear program over the coming years, and that is what the president has set out to do.”

The Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein in the aftermath of 9/11 was based on what proved to be the false premise that the dictator was harboring weapons of mass destruction.

The war coincided with a period in which the U.S. was also involved in removing the Taliban in Afghanistan, which proved to be an even longer commitment that only ended, chaotically, in 2021, helping inspire an aversion to “forever wars” to which Trump himself has previously given voice.

Vance himself enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps after graduating from high school in 2003. He was sent to Iraq in a non-combat role for six months, an experience that is understood to have left him disillusioned and influenced his non-interventionist stance on foreign policy ever since.

Trump’s actions on Saturday night have already drawn comparisons with the defining blunder of the Bush era.

The vice president’s critique of those earlier administrations has, in turn, invited an angry response.

Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth flank Donald Trump as he announces the U.S. strikes on Iran from the White House on Saturday night (AP)

“This is one of the dumbest arguments I have heard any top U.S. official make,” said Michael McFaul, the former American ambassador to Russia under Obama. “Embarrassing.”

Vance’s claim in the same interview that “We’re not at war with Iran, we’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program” was also met with incredulity.

“As war heats up, the propaganda always gets progressively dumber,” said journalist Michael Tracey.

“Imagine if some other country bombed nuclear installations in the U.S., and then tried to claim they were ‘not at war with the U.S.’”

On Sunday, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called the bombing raids on Iran’s Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan sites an “incredible and overwhelming success” that had “devastated the Iranian nuclear programme.”

Tehran has vowed to retaliate and could do so by closing the Strait of Hormuz, driving up global oil prices, or by targeting American military bases on its doorstep in the Gulf.

Trump has since thrown fuel on the flames by declaring on Truth Social: “It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a Regime change???”