J.D. Vance is shape-shifting again

The US Vice-President has ditched his anti-interventionist persona to defend the so-called Trump Doctrine on Iran.

- Nia-Malika Henderson

In his short political career, US Vice-President J.D. Vance has already proven himself to be a political shape-shifter who morphs into whatever suits his political ambitions. It's how he went from being an anti-Trump CNN commentator to President Donald Trump's second in command in just eight years.

Now he is ditching another persona, that of the anti-interventionist, as he tries to sell Mr Trump's strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities to a skeptical Maga base and equally skeptical public.

In a speech on June 24 in Ohio, Mr Vance unveiled what he called the Trump Doctrine, describing the attacks as an overwhelming success, even as preliminary reports suggest something far less.

"What I call the Trump Doctrine is quite simple: Number one, you articulate a clear American interest and that's, in this case, that Iran can't have a nuclear weapon," he said at the dinner. "Number two, you try to aggressively diplomatically solve that problem. And number three, when you can't solve it diplomatically, you use overwhelming military power to solve it, and then you get the hell out of there before it ever becomes a protracted conflict."

The move highlighted Mr Vance's role as an explainer and defender of what could become one of the President's most significant actions.

Mr Trump's goal is the Nobel Peace Prize and Mr Vance's goal is succeeding him by sometimes being more Trump than Trump, vouching for him at every turn, using the kind of bombastic and insulting language that breaks through and that Maga has come to expect. He referred on Meet The Press to the presidents of the last 25 years as "dumb presidents", who led Americans into costly foreign entanglements, something that Mr Trump would avoid.