The US conflict with Iran will enter a “much different phase in a couple of months,” Vice President JD Vance told The Post in an exclusive interview, agreeing with the president that the war would conclude “right after” the midterms following months of tit-for-tat strikes between Washington and Tehran.
The vice president said in a sit-down aboard Air Force Two on Monday that the Iranian regime would continue to lose control over the Strait of Hormuz until the election, now that the critical global energy chokepoint has “returned to well over 50% of normal traffic.”
“We can’t predict the future, but I think the president is right to say that this thing will enter a much different phase in a couple of months,” Vance said. “He’s also the commander in chief, so he’s the person who determines … when conflicts start and when they stop.”
“I certainly understand there’s some impatience from the American people, but fundamentally what’s happening right now is that the United States is not engaged in aggressive operations. We’re just not,” he added.
“But what is happening is that the Iranians are occasionally shooting at commercial shipping, usually not successfully,” Vance said.
Navy SEALS have de-mined much of the strait in the past four months, but crossings remain far below their pre-war levels.
Just 11 commercial vessels transited the strait in the last 24 hours, according to shipping trackers, whereas on average 130 crossed the waterway between Oman and Iran before the war.
However, for months the US has quietly escorted commercial oil tankers with their transponders turned off to evade attacks from Iran, and these so-called “dark” missions are not easily tracked by public numbers.
Roughly 20% of the world’s seaborne oil flows through Hormuz.
The US has degraded most of Iran’s missile and drone capabilities, but Tehran is also still intermittently striking commercial vessels in the strait and launching attacks on American military bases in the Middle East.
Gulf allies have also been targeted, with Trump recently suggesting last weekend that damage to Saudi Arabia’s East-West oil pipeline was caused by Iranian drones.
American forces have also targeted Iranian oil tankers, while the US Treasury has sanctioned banks and other entities keeping the regime’s war machine afloat financially.
“There are really two phases to this thing, and the first phase is done,” Vance continued. “The first phase was destroy the nuclear program, destroy their conventional military, destroy their ability to project power in a way that they were able to even a couple of years ago.”
“And then the second phase of this is ensure that they’re not able to rebuild and try to maintain as much global stability in the wake of that,” he also said.
Vance had been the architect of a Memorandum of Understanding in mid-June between the US and Iran that initiated a cease-fire to pursue negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program and wind down the conflict.
It’s unclear whether Trump will ramp up attacks after the midterm elections to finish the job, or find that Iran is more agreeable to make a deal.
Trump told reporters last Wednesday before heading to the Republican midterm convention in Dallas that “right after the election, oil prices are going to be tumbling downward.”
“I think the war will end immediately after the election because they can’t hold out any longer,” he added.
