{"id":9880,"date":"2026-08-16T04:11:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T04:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=9880"},"modified":"2026-08-16T04:11:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T04:11:18","slug":"jd-vance-and-the-trump-team-keep-moving-the-goalposts-on-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=9880","title":{"rendered":"JD Vance and the Trump team keep moving the goalposts on Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n One of the Trump administration\u2019s biggest problems in extracting itself from the Iran war is the list of very absolutist goals that President Donald Trump and his team laid out.\n <\/p>\n

Read more Democrats look to states with Black, Latino voters to build momentum in 2028<\/a><\/p>\n

\n The goals have included complete Iranian surrender, regime change, Iran never getting a nuclear weapon and ending Tehran\u2019s support for its Middle East proxy groups like Hezbollah.\n <\/p>\n

\n As the war \u2014 now in its sixth month \u2014 has dragged on, this list of goals has conspicuously shifted and been pared back. And Vice President JD Vance appears to have pared it back recently in a remarkable way, offering the latest indication that the administration might be preparing to settle for less \u2014 maybe even a lot less.\n <\/p>\n

\n Appearing on Fox News on Thursday, Vance was asked how the war might end. And he laid out two goals.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s ensuring that the Gulf countries continue to send oil and gas to the world economy so that we have energy price stability,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cThat\u2019s goal number one: Keep oil and gas cheap for Americans all over our country.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cAnd then, obviously, goal number two is ensure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n This is not the administration\u2019s old list of goals \u2014 and the order Vance placed them in is striking.\n <\/p>\n

\n When asked about Vance\u2019s comments on Friday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt maintained that \u201cboth goals are equally as important to the president.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The administration has almost always characterized Iran never getting a nuclear weapon as the overriding concern.\n <\/p>\n

\n And even if the goals are truly equal in the administration\u2019s mind, including oil and gas prices at all \u2014 and not other items \u2014 is a notable shift.\n <\/p>\n

\n In fact, Trump explicitly rejected this as a goal back in May. When asked if he considered Americans\u2019 financial situation when trying to resolve the war, Trump responded, \u201cNot even a little bit.\u201d He signaled that denuclearization was so important that he didn\u2019t factor in anything else.\n <\/p>\n

\n (Trump echoed that line on Friday, saying he would \u201cnever\u202fapologize\u201d for Americans paying a little more for gas, given the stakes in Iran.)\n <\/p>\n

\n I wrote in March about how the administration frequently listed four goals for the war \u2014 but how the four goals frequently differed depending upon who was speaking.\n <\/p>\n

Read more How much eye contact is just right?<\/a><\/p>\n

\n Some lists included ending funding for proxy groups, for example, while others did not. Some mentioned destroying Iran\u2019s missile infrastructure, while others omitted that. Some mentioned getting rid of Iran\u2019s air force and navy, but others only mentioned the navy.\n <\/p>\n

\n It was like the administration was workshopping the list in real time.\n <\/p>\n

\n But the key point here is that none of those lists included keeping oil and gas prices low in the United States.\n <\/p>\n

\n And given the Strait of Hormuz was open before the war started, that particular goal could just be read as a return to the pre-war status quo \u2014 with denuclearization being the only goal that would represent a new achievement.\n <\/p>\n

\n Indeed, the new emphasis on low gas prices from some in the administration seems like the latest sign of relaxing the goals to prepare for a conclusion to the war that comes up well shy of Trump\u2019s initial aims.\n <\/p>\n

\n By May, it became clear the administration was no longer going to emphasize certain goals.\n <\/p>\n

\n By June, the Trump administration entered into a memorandum of understanding with Iran that barely mentioned previously central US goals.\n <\/p>\n

\n And for the last two-plus months, Trump has been saying things that sounded a lot like he might scale back his nuclear demands.\n <\/p>\n

\n While the administration previously emphasized Iran turning over its enriched uranium, Trump\u2019s spoken about how perhaps enough damage was done to its nuclear program and its nuclear materials are buried too far underground to be accessed. The president has also talked about how the US government could simply monitor from space to make sure Iran didn\u2019t try to retrieve them.\n <\/p>\n

\n He\u2019s even claimed that Iran was already<\/em> denuclearized.\n <\/p>\n

\n In other words, Trump sounded a lot like a guy who knew he might not be able to cow Iran into accepting a really restrictive nuclear deal.\n <\/p>\n

\n His administration talking about energy prices as \u201cgoal number one\u201d \u2014 even if Trump isn\u2019t \u2014 would fit neatly with this progression away from the hard-and-fast goals that the administration set out to achieve.\n <\/p>\n

\n If a return to the pre-war status quo really is \u201cgoal number one\u201d right now, that says a lot about how little this war has accomplished.\n <\/p>\n

Read more Republicans worry their chances of keeping Congress are slipping away. Inside the Trump campaign plan to change that<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the Iran war \u2014 now in its sixth month \u2014 has dragged on, this list of goals from the Trump administration has conspicuously shifted and been pared back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nJD Vance and the Trump team keep moving the goalposts on Iran - Relocation Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/relocationtimess.com\/?p=9880\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"JD Vance and the Trump team keep moving the goalposts on Iran - 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