JD Vance recently said that economic pressure is the United States’ “most effective tool” against Iran.
This is not quite an admission that the “we negotiate with bombs” strategy was folly, but it recenters the conversation on the original questions of this conflict.
The basic question of the Iran war has always been: Was war the only way to achieve the administration’s stated objective? Answering it requires comparing what the war added with what it cost.
Vance says the war has entered a “new phase,” in which economic pressure is now the United States’ “most effective tool.” The word “now” suggests the previous phase of bombing was a necessary precondition for this one. Military force might have weakened Iran so that economic pressure could work.
It might also be the case that Vance is recognizing something that could have been known before the bombing started. That means this is not progress, but an admission of failure.
In the period immediately before the strikes, there were reported movements toward an arrangement on Iran’s stockpile of 60 percent enriched uranium.1 Omani officials described the proposed commitments as a significant breakthrough. Draft texts were anticipated. It suggested movement on the precise issue the war was later ostensibly launched to resolve.
Was a deal likely? Undoubtedly not. But the measure of the war’s success or folly is the difference between what can be achieved now and what could have been achieved in February of 2026. The administration must show what the bombs changed: what concessions economic pressure can obtain now that it could not have obtained before the war, and why the negotiations underway in February could not have produced them.
Confusing the calculation is that the goal posts for this war have moved so much they seem to be on a mechanized track. Reopening the Strait of Hormuz, lowering gas prices, ending a blockade or returning to negotiations are the key points being discussed now. All are desirable, but they are also attempts to recover conditions that existed before the bombing.
Solving a problem created by the war is not the same as achieving the objective for which the war was started. It is an admission that the objectives have not been achieved and a hint that they might never be achieved.
Improvisational whipsaws can become numbing background noise during the Trump years. The president sometimes changes position in the same sentence. But that razzle-dazzle hits differently when they involve war, the most dire use of presidential power. Or they should.
The Iran war has had a rhythm: attack, retaliation, ceasefire, collapse, new phase. Every day feels enough like the one before it that the original questions fade. Wake me when the war is over. That surrender of attention is useful to an administration constantly replacing yesterday’s rationale with today’s.
Another way to think about the current outcome is to look at the Obama-era JCPOA that Trump backed out of. That agreement reduced Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, capped enrichment, cut the number of centrifuges and created an intrusive international inspection system. It did not cover Iran’s ballistic missiles or its support for regional proxies, but those do not appear to be part of the current negotiations either.
The administration began the war insisting that force was necessary because negotiation and economic pressure had failed. Nearly six months later, the vice president says economic pressure is the most effective means of accomplishing the “final objective.”
Vance’s new position relies on a kind of conclusion by chronology. A “new phase” is framed as progress. It came after the previous phase, so it must be an evolution. But a Hail Mary pass is also a new phase. That does not mean it is a good new phase or that things are moving in the right direction.
Vance’s characterization of the “final objective” asks us to forget the previous objectives: eliminating Iran’s nuclear program, destroying its missiles, ending its support for proxies, rescuing the Iranian people, influencing the choice of Iran’s next leader, reopening the strait and producing unconditional surrender. The final objective is the one left after the others have been dropped.
Imagine if the administration had understood from the start that it would arrive here. It's the kind of thing worth knowing. Especially before launching a war. Wars and bombs are so costly. Carnage, money, lives, missile stockpiles, alliances, the global economy, people who rely on gas—all might have been spared if diplomacy and economic pressure could have produced the same leverage without the bombs.
That stockpile, if further enriched, could have been sufficient for several nuclear weapons, per IAEA-based estimates. Reporting since has described an Omani-mediated framework in which Iran would hand over the material and reduce its program to a single active facility—though U.S. terms reportedly excluded compensation for war damages or the release of frozen Iranian assets. Omani officials called the framework more durable, in some respects, than the 2015 deal.
I'm no pundit but it seems to me that the real reason we started the war was due to pressure from Netanyahu. The many justifications were post hoc rationalizations.
You have such a way with words. And once again, you’ve nailed it!