JD Vance dispatched to negotiate Iran peace with few cards to play

The Guardian — Apr 10, 23:05 PM

Vice-president’s war doubts and his boss’s desperation to reopen Red Sea look like a weak deck against bolstered opponents

As JD Vance arrives in Islamabad to negotiate a peace deal with Iran, his first high-profile assignment of the war looks to be a poisoned chalice.

Vance, a vocal opponent of US wars in the Middle East gone quiet since the beginning of the current military campaign, will now face off with Iranian negotiators who feel https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/10/middle-east-crisis-has-given-iran-new-way-to-resist-nuclear-limits-say-former-us-iran-envoys">emboldened by their new control of the Hormuz strait and their resilience in the face of the largest US-Israeli onslaught in history.

Vance’s presence at the talks as vice-president will make it the highest-level meeting since the Iranian revolution of 1979.