Vance, Rubio’s differing postures on Iran war highlight their challenges

Washington: As President Donald Trump assembled his Cabinet last week, he asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance to give an update on the Iran war.

Rubio, known for his hawkish views, gave an impassioned defence of the war, calling it “a favour” to the United States and the world.

Vance, who has long pushed for restraint in US military intervention overseas, was more sedate. He said that the US now has “options” it didn’t have a year ago and that it is important Iran does not get a nuclear weapon — before redirecting his remarks toward wishing the troops a happy Easter.

The exchange was a distillation of their diverging postures toward the war that their boss has launched in Iran.

And it comes as some would-be Republican presidential

candidates begin quietly courting officials in key states like New Hampshire in the early stages of the GOP’s next nomination fight.

With Vance and Rubio seen as the party’s strongest potential candidates in a 2028 primary, the two have to balance their roles in the Trump administration with their future political plans. “It’s very obvious from the way that Rubio talks about Iran and the way that Vance talks about Iran that they are of different casts of mind,” said Curt Mills, the executive director of “The American Conservative” magazine and a vocal critic of the war.

The Cabinet meeting episode was telling, he said, because it seemed as though Vance, discussing Easter, was “literally trying to talk about anything else other than the war”.