JD Vance said the US is “locked and loaded” to restart military operations if Iran fails to agree to a peace deal.
Vance warned that an Iranian nuclear weapon could trigger a global nuclear arms race, especially across Gulf nations.
The remarks came after Donald Trump paused fresh strikes on Iran, saying negotiations were progressing.
The US was "locked and loaded" to resume military operations if Tehran failed to achieve a peace agreement, according to US Vice President J. D. Vance, who also said that Iran possessing an atomic weapon would launch a "nuclear arms race" globally.
Vance's comments at a White House press conference on Tuesday come a day after President Donald Trump postponed the decision to resume attacking Iran again at the request of Arab countries, such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which claimed that Tehran was being "reasonable" in peace negotiations.
"We think the Iranians want to make a deal. The president of the United States has asked us to negotiate in good faith. And that’s exactly what we’ve done," the vice president said.
But Vance warned that diplomacy will not come at the cost of Trump’s key demand that Iran never obtain a nuclear weapon.
"So as the president just told me, we're locked and loaded," Vance said, adding that he had a meeting with Trump before coming to the press briefing. "We don't want to go down that pathway. But the president is willing and able to go down that pathway if we have to," the vice president said. Vance said the US has a “simple proposition” and there are “two paths to go down”.
“Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” he said, adding that if Tehran acquired one, it would send other nations “scrambling” to get their own, setting off a “nuclear arms race”.
“Iran would really be the first domino in what would set off a nuclear arms race all over the world,” he said.
“If the Iranians did get a nuclear weapon, we know that a lot of nations all across the Gulf would then want their own nuclear weapon, and then a lot of nations all across the world,” Vance said.
“As the father of three young kids, I don't want them to inherit a world where 20 additional regimes—half of them very dangerous and very sympathetic to terrorists—have nuclear weapons,” Vance said.
“We want to keep the number of countries that have nuclear weapons small, and that's why Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. On top of all the other things that we might be worried about, that they themselves could use it, that they could use it as leverage in economic control or economic negotiations. We just don't want them to have a nuclear weapon,” Vance said.
"There’s an option B, and the option B is that we could restart the military campaign to continue to prosecute the case, to continue to try to achieve America’s objectives," Vance said. "But that’s not what the president wants. And I don’t think it’s what the Iranians want either," he said.
He claims that there is a chance to improve relations between Washington and Tehran, "but it takes two to tango."
With PTI inputs.
