\n\t\t\t\t\t\tPresident Donald Trump is tasking the member of his inner circle who has seemed to be the most reluctant defender of the conflict with Iran to now find a resolution to the war that began six weeks ago and stave off the president’s astonishing threat to wipe out its \u201cwhole civilization.\u201dVice President JD Vance, who has long been skeptical of foreign military interventions and outspoken about the prospect of sending troops into open-ended conflicts, sets off Friday to lead mediated talks with Iran in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.It comes as a tenuous, temporary ceasefire appears to be on the precipice of collapsing. The chasm between Iran\u2019s public demands and those from the U.S. and its partner Israel seem irreconcilable. And in the U.S., where Vance might ask voters in two years\u2019 time to make him the next president, there is growing political and economic pressure to wrap it up.Vance is joined by Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who took part in three rounds of indirect talks with Iranian negotiators aimed at settling U.S. concerns about Tehran\u2019s nuclear and ballistic weapons programs and its support for armed proxy groups in the Middle East before Trump and Israel launched the Feb. 28 war against Iran.The White House has provided scant detail about the format of the talks \u2014 whether they will be direct or indirect \u2014 and has not provided specific expectations for the meeting.Video below: Automatic registration for the US military draft will begin this yearBut the arrival of Vance for negotiations marks a rare moment of high-level U.S. government engagement with the Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the most direct contact had been when President Barack Obama in September 2013 called newly elected Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to discuss Iran\u2019s nuclear program.The two sides face a steep climb in making headwayAlmost immediately after the White House and Iran announced a temporary ceasefire Tuesday evening, the sides found themselves at odds over terms of the truce.Iran insisted that an end to the Israeli war in Lebanon was part of the ceasefire. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump said the truce did not cover Lebanon and the Israeli operations there continued.The U.S., meanwhile, demanded that Iran make good on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The Islamic Republic had closed the critical shipping waterway in response to Israel\u2019s intensifying attacks against the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon.Trump on Thursday night said Iran was \u201cdoing a very poor job\u201d of allowing oil tankers to pass through, writing on social media, \u201cThat is not the agreement we have!\u201dWhite House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said Vance, Witkoff, Kushner and Secretary of State Marco Rubio \u201chave always been collaborating on these discussions\u201d and said Trump was optimistic that a lasting deal can be reached during the two-week ceasefire. \u201cPresident Trump has a proven track record of achieving good deals on behalf of the United States and the American people, and he will only accept one that puts America first,\u201d Kelly said.High stakes for peace \u2014 and for politicsIt\u2019s the highest-stakes moment thus far for Vance, who spent much of last year as more of a background player in the Trump White House, especially as others like Elon Musk and Rubio took turns as ever-present advisers for the president.But Vance\u2019s portfolio is fattening fast, first with a mission to root out fraud in government programs at home and now to help solve a U.S. war in the Middle East, where complicated doesn\u2019t even begin to describe things.Vance, who served in the Iraq War while in the Marines, spent two years as a U.S. senator and a little more than one as vice president, has little diplomatic experience.On Wednesday, he dismissed speculation that the Iranians requested that he join the talks, telling reporters: \u201cI don\u2019t know that. I would be surprised if that was true. But, you know, I wanted to be involved because I thought I could make a difference.\u201dJonathan Schanzer, a former Treasury Department official who is now executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish Washington think tank, said Vance, with little experience on Iran policy, is an interesting choice to lead the delegation.Trump has noted his vice president was \u201cless enthusiastic\u201d than other top senior officials in the Republican administration, making Vance an intriguing interlocutor for the Iranian side, Schanzer said.\u201cI think they probably prefer him knowing that his perspective on foreign intervention is one of skepticism,\u201d Schanzer said of the Iranians. \u201cI do think that he\u2019s going to need some help. I don\u2019t think he\u2019s ever been engaged in negotiations with this kind of weight, this kind of seriousness. This is as serious as it gets.\u201dThe White House has pushed back against the characterization that Iran wanted Vance in the talks, casting it as an effort to hurt negotiations.The White House has not detailed who will be in the talks besides Vance, Witkoff and Kushner, but Kelly said officials from the National Security Council, State Department and Pentagon \u201cwill also play a supportive role.\u201dDuring early rounds of indirect nuclear talks with the Iranians before the war, Democrats and some nuclear experts questioned whether Kushner and Witkoff had enough technical knowledge. The White House has not said whether the pair, whom Trump has entrusted with some of his most difficult negotiations since returning to office, had a nuclear expert with them for those talks.Negotiating peace is a tall order for any vice presidentIt\u2019s not unusual for vice presidents to take on important negotiating roles for the president, said Joel Goldstein, a professor of law at Saint Louis University who is an expert on the history of the vice presidency.But, he said, \u201cI don\u2019t recall a situation where a vice president has been sent to negotiate a ceasefire or peace in connection with a war the United States was involved with.\u201dVance and Rubio are seen as the Republican Party\u2019s strongest potential 2028 presidential contenders, though neither has given a clear answer about whether he intends to run.The vice president’s team is not thinking about the negotiations with an eye to future political considerations, according to a person familiar with discussions who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.As vice president, Vance inherently would carry any baggage of the administration if he eventually does run for president, Goldstein said. But stepping in to lead negotiations even further identifies him with the conflict.\u201cThe fact that he\u2019s involved in the negotiations in a very visible way, that means that, if things go south, that people will be pointing fingers at him,\u201d Goldstein said.At the same time, Goldstein said, \u201cIf things go well, then it will be something that he could point to.\u201d\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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