The US conflict with Iran is set to move into a “much different phase in a couple of months,” Vice President JD Vance told The Post in an exclusive interview, echoing President Trump’s assessment that the war would end “right after” the midterm elections following months of reciprocal strikes by Washington and Tehran.
Speaking aboard Air Force Two on Monday, Vance said the Iranian regime would keep losing its grip on the Strait of Hormuz ahead of the election. Traffic through the vital global energy corridor, he said, has “returned to well over 50% of normal traffic.”
“We can’t predict the future, but I think the president is right to say that this thing will enter a much different phase in a couple of months,” Vance said. “He’s also the commander in chief, so he’s the person who determines … when conflicts start and when they stop.”
Vance acknowledged growing public frustration over the Iran war but argued that the United States is not currently carrying out offensive operations.
“But what is happening is that the Iranians are occasionally shooting at commercial shipping, usually not successfully,” Vance said.
Navy SEALs have cleared mines from much of the Strait of Hormuz over the past four months, though vessel crossings remain well below pre-war levels.
Shipping trackers recorded just 11 commercial vessels passing through the strait in the past 24 hours. Before the war, an average of 130 ships a day crossed the waterway separating Oman and Iran.
For months, however, the US has quietly provided escorts for commercial oil tankers operating with their transponders switched off to avoid Iranian attacks. Those so-called “dark” missions are difficult to capture in publicly available shipping data.
About 20% of the world’s seaborne oil supply passes through the Strait of Hormuz, making the route one of the most consequential energy chokepoints on the planet.
The US has significantly degraded Iran’s missile and drone capabilities, but Tehran continues to intermittently target commercial vessels in the strait and launch attacks against American military bases across the Middle East.
Gulf allies have also been targeted, with Trump recently suggesting last weekend that damage to Saudi Arabia’s East-West oil pipeline was caused by Iranian drones.
American forces have also targeted Iranian oil tankers, while the US Treasury has sanctioned banks and other entities keeping the regime’s war machine afloat financially.
“There are really two phases to this thing, and the first phase is done,” Vance continued. “The first phase was destroy the nuclear program, destroy their conventional military, destroy their ability to project power in a way that they were able to even a couple of years ago.”
“And then the second phase of this is ensure that they’re not able to rebuild and try to maintain as much global stability in the wake of that,” he also said.
Vance had been the architect of a Memorandum of Understanding in mid-June between the US and Iran that initiated a cease-fire to pursue negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program and wind down the conflict.
It’s unclear whether Trump will ramp up attacks after the midterm elections to finish the job, or find that Iran is more agreeable to make a deal.
Trump told reporters last Wednesday before heading to the Republican midterm convention in Dallas that “right after the election, oil prices are going to be tumbling downward.”
“I think the war will end immediately after the election because they can’t hold out any longer,” he added.