Vice President JD Vance is weighing direct talks with a top Iranian security official as President Donald Trump empowers him to lead renewed negotiations aimed at ending the months-long conflict, according to a Wednesday report.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Vance is considering a face-to-face meeting with Mohsen Rezaei, the hard-line secretary of Iran’s powerful Supreme National Security Council and a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). No meeting has been scheduled, and discussions remain preliminary as Washington and Tehran continue communicating through regional intermediaries.
Trump has recently told senior aides and foreign counterparts that he is open to Vance restarting negotiations and has authorized the vice president to take a leading role in the diplomatic effort. Vance has consequently assumed a more prominent role than Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who have also been involved in negotiations with Tehran.
Vance sent Rezaei a letter in October requesting a meeting.
The prospective negotiations follow Vance’s earlier diplomatic effort in June, which produced a memorandum of understanding that temporarily halted fighting but failed to secure Iranian commitments to restrict its nuclear program or relinquish control over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The agreement subsequently unraveled as Iranian forces resumed attacks on commercial vessels in the strategic waterway.
Trump has privately questioned whether the June agreement was a costly mistake that gave Tehran time to regroup and collect oil revenues before Washington imposed its naval blockade, two officials told the outlet. A White House official disputed that account, denying that the president had reconsidered the agreement and maintaining that the negotiators acted in good faith.
The diplomatic effort advanced Monday when Vance met with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani before the two joined Trump and other senior officials for discussions at the White House. Doha is being considered as a possible venue for direct talks between Vance and Iranian officials.
Following the discussions, Trump said negotiations were progressing and indicated that another major American offensive appeared unlikely, while maintaining the naval blockade and keeping U.S. forces prepared to respond if necessary.
“We’re seeing momentum toward the end of this conflict,” Trump said. “I think it’s going to be ending fairly soon.”
Trump reiterated that position Wednesday during a Veterans Day address at Arlington National Cemetery, declaring that the United States had already defeated Iran militarily but would not conclude the conflict without securing a “total victory.”
“America did not start a war with Iran. Iran has been waging war on America since 1979. This should have been taken care of a long time ago,” Trump said.
“We fought back. And we seriously fought back. And we won,” he continued. “Just a question of when we want to end it. We want to make sure we have a total victory, not a 93% victory. It’s going to be total.”
Trump said Iran would need 25 years to rebuild what American forces had destroyed and expressed hope that further strikes would prove unnecessary, while predicting that the conflict would end soon.
Any renewed negotiations would face substantial obstacles, with Tehran demanding that Washington meet seven conditions for ending the conflict, including lifting its naval blockade, releasing frozen Iranian assets, and easing oil sanctions — concessions the administration has already rejected.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio dismissed Tehran’s demands Tuesday as unrealistic, reiterating that the administration remains open to diplomacy but will not accept Iran’s existing conditions.
“Iran would love a deal. The problem is the conditions they continue to place are absurd. Like, they’re not even serious right now,” Rubio said, adding that the president remains willing to pursue a diplomatic settlement.
Rubio also said Trump had concluded that additional major combat operations were unnecessary for the time being because the administration was achieving its objectives through escalating economic pressure on Tehran.
“The President has concluded that for the time being there is no need for major combat operations because we’re achieving the same objective by economic means,” Rubio said.
Rubio rejected suggestions that maintaining the blockade amounted to a stalemate, warning that the economic damage inflicted on Iran would continue to intensify.
“The economic pain that is being inflicted on Iran right now is extraordinary and it compounds. It’s growing every day,” Rubio said.
Washington has expanded its economic offensive beyond the naval blockade, targeting the land and Caspian Sea routes Iran has relied upon to obtain military supplies, sanctioned goods, and illicit revenue.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) established Task Force Iron Gate on Saturday to coordinate efforts to prevent the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from moving advanced weapons, dual-use technology, sanctioned materials, and illicit revenue through routes beyond the reach of American warships.
The expanded campaign builds on a naval blockade that has redirected nearly 150 vessels attempting to violate American restrictions since July, disabled five ships, and prevented an estimated $30 billion in Iranian crude oil exports, according to figures released Wednesday by CENTCOM.
Meanwhile, nearly 4,000 commercial vessels have passed through the Strait of Hormuz under American protection, transporting approximately 1.7 billion barrels of crude oil as U.S. forces continue securing the strategic waterway, according to CENTCOM.
Regional mediators have floated preliminary proposals under which Washington would ease restrictions on Iranian ports and reposition American aircraft carriers farther from Iran in exchange for Tehran allowing 25 tankers to transit the Strait of Hormuz. No agreement has been reached, and the United States continues to enforce its blockade.
The prospect of direct negotiations faces an additional obstacle in Rezaei himself, who has publicly dismissed reports of talks with Washington and rejected American demands concerning Iran’s enriched nuclear material.
Rezaei has dismissed reports of negotiations as “imaginary talks” and insisted that Tehran “will not remove even a single particle of enriched nuclear material from the country,” directly challenging Washington’s demand that Iran relinquish its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
Rezaei also threatened on Wednesday to strike American military bases as far away as Europe if they are used to launch renewed attacks against Iran.
“If the US launches another war against Iran, every military base involved in the aggression—from West Asia to Europe—will be a legitimate target for Iran’s lethal strikes,” Rezaei declared on X, warning: “NO SAFE DISTANCE. NO SAFE HAVEN. NO IMMUNITY.”
Complicating the diplomatic effort further, Middle Eastern officials reportedly fear that IRGC commander-in-chief Ahmad Vahidi, who wields greater influence than Rezaei within Iran’s security establishment, could undermine negotiations even if Vance secures a meeting.
The renewed diplomatic initiative follows last week’s midterm elections, when Republicans suffered major losses that Vance publicly blamed in part on the Iran conflict, underscoring the political stakes of his effort to secure an agreement.
Trump acknowledged Vance’s assessment but defended the military campaign, saying he would make the same decision again despite the political consequences.
Vance’s prospective negotiations would therefore test whether Tehran is prepared to make the concessions Washington has demanded, even as Trump maintains a tightening economic blockade and Iran’s security leadership publicly rejects the terms of an agreement.
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jklein@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
