Vice President JD Vance declined to call the conflict with Iran, which has lasted more than six months, a war during his second solo appearance in the White House press briefing room.
“I wouldn’t call it a war,” Vance told reporters on Thursday. “Right now, there is no active shooting.”
Vance did acknowledge there had been a “flare up” in recent days, but reiterated that the “major operation,” known as Epic Fury, only “lasted for about six weeks.”
“We destroyed, of course, their nuclear facilities with Midnight Hammer,” he said. “With Epic Fury, we destroyed their defense industrial base for producing weapons, and also a lot of their conventional military. And then we made it harder for them to rebuild that nuclear program.”
Vance also said it would be irresponsible of President Donald Trump and his administration to provide a possible end date for the war.
“But when you ask when will this end, you’re asking me a question like when will the Iranians stop shooting at ships?” he said. “I think the reality is I don’t know the answer to that question. You would have to ask the Iranians ‘when will the Iranians shooting at ships stop having an effect on world energy markets?’”
Vance went on to repeat that the Trump administration is not prepared to “depend on the Iranians behaving responsibly or negotiating in good faith.”
“What we’re going to do is use the tools that we have at our disposal to ensure that the American people, one, never have to deal with the threat of an Iranian nuclear program, and, two, that world energy markets are properly supplied,” the vice president said. “Our attitude is we’re not going to set an artificial timeline because let’s just say hypothetically, let’s say I told you three months, say I told you three days, okay? And then the Iranians start blowing up oil and gas ships, and the United States is the only country with the capability to ensure that those oil and gas ships get to market.”
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He added, “What I would say is it would be irresponsible for us to write out our strategy and our timeline for an Iranian nation that simply cannot honor its commitments and cannot stop shooting at commercial ships.”