51吃瓜

When US Vice President JD Vance sat down for anearly three-hour with American podcaster Joe Rogan on July 15, he did not sound like a man defending a diplomatic triumph. He sounded like a man looking for someone else to blame. Citing a into an Israeli-government-funded influence campaign, Vance told the people behind it to 鈥済o to hell,鈥� said he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that people inside the Israeli government were trying to keep the war with Iran going indefinitely and when Rogan asked him directly whether the US would still be fighting Iran without Israeli influence, answered without hesitation: Yes.

It made for dramatic podcasting. It also conveniently sidestepped an uncomfortable question: Why, after months of shuttle diplomacy, a ceasefire thatwas within hours of being announced and a signed memorandum of understanding, is the United States still exchanging fire with Iran, and Iran鈥檚 nuclear ambitions still unresolved? Vance has an answer, and it isn鈥檛 鈥渢he deal I designed didn鈥檛 hold.鈥� It鈥檚 鈥淚srael wouldn鈥檛 let it hold.鈥�

That is a convenient story. It may also be a wildly incomplete one, built to protect a vice president鈥檚 reputation rather than to explain what actually happened.

The deal that wasn鈥檛

Set aside the rhetoric and look at the record. Vance and special envoy Steve Witkoff spent months shuttling between Oman, Pakistan and other venues trying to lock in a settlement with Tehran. On his own account to Rogan, the memorandum of understanding () they eventually signed opened the Strait of Hormuz and paused the fighting 鈥� only for Iranian hardliners to panic at the loss of leverage, fire on shipping, draw an American response and send the whole process back to the negotiating table, where it has cycled between talks and renewed strikes ever since. A in The New Republic went further, arguing the deal represented American concessions dressed up as victories.

This is the backdrop against which Vance chose to spend a marquee podcast appearance not explaining what went wrong with the substance of the deal, but relitigating who was to blame for its instability. And the villain he settled on was not Tehran鈥檚 hardliners, whom he himself described as panicking and firing on ships mid-negotiation, and not the American hawks in his own party who never wanted a deal in the first place 鈥� it was Israel.

A scapegoat with a long r茅sum茅

There鈥檚 a pattern worth naming here. Politicians who oversell a foreign policy achievement and then watch it wobble have two options: Admit the plan was flawed, or find an external saboteur. Vance chose the second path, and did it repeatedly. In the Rogan interview, he described a 鈥渧ery discreet, extremely well-funded campaign鈥� (his words, used once here and not reused) to derail the negotiation, attributing it to unnamed elements inside the Israeli government. Asked pointedly whether the war would have continued without Israeli influence, he said yes, immediately.

Notice what this framing accomplishes. It relocates the difficulty of the negotiation from Vance鈥檚 own strategy and Tehran鈥檚 own hardliners onto a third party 鈥� one that happens to be a politically fraught subject inside his own coalition. It lets him tell a Make America Great Again (MAGA) base audience increasingly skeptical of open-ended commitments to Israel that he was undermined rather than outmaneuvered. And it lets him avoid a less flattering possibility: that a nation 47 years into the Islamic Republic was never going to permanently trade away its nuclear leverage and regional proxy network for the terms on offer 鈥� and that Israeli officials who said so from the start were reading the regime correctly.

Republicans themselves are visibly uneasy with how Vance has handled this. Senator Tommy Tuberville a notably hedged defense, saying Vance was 鈥渢rying to juggle this whole thing鈥� while conceding Israel wasn鈥檛 agreeing to much of what Washington wanted. That is not the language of a party rallying around a vindicated peacemaker. It鈥檚 the language of Republicans watching their vice president pick a public fight with America鈥檚 closest Middle East ally and wondering whether it鈥檚 strategy or cover.

Nor is this Vance鈥檚 first outing in this genre. Weeks earlier he at Israeli officials directly, saying the country was diplomatically isolated and had failed to appreciate American military and diplomatic support 鈥� remarks the Washington Post described as deepening a rift between the two allies. Around the same time, he Israeli critics of the deal to name an alternative, arguing the country 鈥渃ouldn鈥檛 kill its way out鈥� of its security problems. Whatever the merits of that argument, the pattern is consistent: Every time the deal comes under strain, Vance鈥檚 instinct is to point at Jerusalem, not at his own negotiating table.

鈥淵ou can鈥檛 deal with the Islamic Republic鈥�

Here is the part Vance doesn鈥檛 say out loud, because it would mean admitting his own approach was naive: Israeli skepticism about negotiating with Tehran isn鈥檛 a recent, opportunistic obstruction campaign. It鈥檚 a decade-plus-old, deeply held conviction, dating back at least to the fight over the 2015 , that the Islamic Republic will sign whatever document is put in front of it and then quietly continue enriching uranium, arming proxies and testing the limits of any agreement. Israeli officials didn鈥檛 need a funded influence campaign to reach that conclusion; they reached it by watching Iran鈥檚 actual behavior for decades 鈥� an instinct even by former Vice President Mike Pence, who warned Vance against repeating what Pence called the appeasement mistakes of past American negotiations with Tehran.

Vance鈥檚 own account of the negotiation to Rogan is, unintentionally, the best evidence for this. He described exactly the dynamic Israeli hawks predicted: Iran signs, extracts concessions, its hardliners get spooked by the loss of leverage the moment sanctions or military pressure ease, and the country reverts to violence within days. He framed this as a manageable 鈥渟tops and starts鈥� process rather than proof the regime was never going to hold to the deal鈥檚 terms. When Israeli officials made that same argument, he treated it not as a data point from an ally with deep intelligence penetration of Iran, but as sabotage. That鈥檚 not a rebuttal of the Israeli critique 鈥� his own narrative confirms it.

The countercase and where the rhetoric gets dangerous

To be fair to Vance, his central factual claim is not invented from nothing. The Time investigation is real: citing Foreign Agents Registration Act filings, it reported that Brad Parscale鈥檚 firm, Clock Tower X, was engaged last September through the ad agency Havas on behalf of the Israeli government to run a large-scale social media campaign. The campaign was worth roughly $1.5 million a month, targeting young American conservatives 鈥� officially to counter online antisemitism, though the campaign鈥檚 output also included messaging pushing back on ceasefire critics within Trump鈥檚 base.

If accurate, that鈥檚 a legitimate story, and Vance is entitled to be irritated at being personally targeted by people it funded. Foreign governments lobby American public opinion constantly, and Vance made that broader point himself, comparing Israel鈥檚 efforts to Qatar鈥檚 and Russia鈥檚 and saying he doesn鈥檛 mind the lobbying itself so much as American officials letting it override their own judgment.

But there鈥檚 a difference between 鈥渁n Israeli-funded influence campaign criticized my deal, and I resent it鈥� and 鈥渆lements of the Israeli government are the reason my Iran policy is struggling.鈥� The first is a defensible, specific complaint. The second is a sweeping alibi that conveniently absorbs every criticism of the deal 鈥� from Israeli officials, from American hawks, from Iran鈥檚 own hardliners 鈥� into a single, simpler narrative about foreign manipulation.

It鈥檚 also worth noting that in the same conversation, Vance discussed tying prolific pedophile Jeffrey Epstein to Israeli intelligence at some length 鈥� commentary that, whatever his intent, sits uncomfortably close to territory that has circulated for years without evidence and has often shaded into classic antisemitic conspiracy thinking about hidden Israeli control. Even people sympathetic to Vance鈥檚 narrow complaint about the Parscale campaign should be uneasy about that rhetorical company. Vance did, notably, also push back on the charge that he himself is anti-Israel or antisemitic, framing his position as a normal-ally relationship rather than hostility 鈥� a defense worth taking at face value even while noting the pattern above.

There鈥檚 also a version of events favorable to Vance, in which this isn鈥檛 scapegoating at all but a genuine break with an unconditional pro-Israel consensus inside the Republican Party 鈥� a vice president willing, in his words, to treat Israel like any other ally with whom 鈥渨e鈥檙e going to have disagreements鈥� as well as agreements, pursuing American interests where they diverge from Israeli ones. Some in his party鈥檚 more restraint-minded wing would call that a feature, not a deflection.

Whether one finds that persuasive likely depends on whether the underlying Iran deal was ever salvageable on Vance鈥檚 terms in the first place, or whether 鈥� as Israeli officials have long argued 鈥� no amount of skillful American diplomacy was going to produce a durable agreement with a regime that has spent decades treating negotiations as a tool of delay rather than resolution.

Strip away the podcast theatrics and what鈥檚 left is a vice president whose signature diplomatic project has repeatedly come apart in the field, and who has chosen, publicly and more than once, to explain that instability by pointing at Israel rather than at his own assumptions about Tehran. Some of his specific complaints about a funded influence campaign are well documented and fair. But documentation on that narrow point doesn鈥檛 rescue the broader claim that Israel is the reason his Iran policy keeps faltering.

By Vance鈥檚 own account, it was Iranian hardliners, not Israeli officials, who panicked and fired on ships the moment the MOU cost them leverage. Israeli officials didn鈥檛 sabotage a deal that was working. They warned, consistently, that a deal with the Islamic Republic on those terms wasn鈥檛 going to hold 鈥� and Vance鈥檚 own retelling of events, stripped of the blame he assigns elsewhere, largely proves them right. Blaming an ally is easier than admitting the ally鈥檚 warning was correct. That鈥檚 not foreign policy. That鈥檚 a cover story.

The views expressed in this article are the author鈥檚 own and do not necessarily reflect 51吃瓜鈥檚 editorial policy.