Vice President JD Vance’s attempt to spin U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities as something other than an act of war collapsed under scrutiny Sunday, exposing the growing gap between Donald Trump’s non-interventionist rhetoric and his administration’s escalating military actions.
JD Vance: “We’re not at war with Iran, we’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program.”
— ADAM (@AdameMedia) June 22, 2025
This might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
pic.twitter.com/0NICRbccKC
In a strained This Week interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl, Vance insisted, “We’re not at war with Iran. We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program” – a distinction that immediately drew widespread ridicule. The semantic gymnastics came just three years after Trump campaigned as the anti-war candidate, telling supporters in 2024, “My administration will never drag America into stupid foreign wars like the ones I ended.”
National security experts quickly dismantled Vance’s claim. “This is like saying we bombed Pearl Harbor but aren’t at war with Japan,” tweeted former Pentagon official Mick Mulroy. The comparison was echoed across social media, with journalists noting that no nation would accept attacks on its critical infrastructure as anything less than acts of war.
The administration’s messaging chaos reflects a deeper contradiction. While Trump continues to posture as an isolationist – recently telling a rally crowd “I’m the only president who didn’t start new wars” – his strikes on Iran’s nuclear program risk precisely the kind of open-ended Middle East conflict he once condemned.
“They want credit for being tough on Iran without admitting they’ve started exactly the kind of war Trump promised to prevent,” said Brookings Institution analyst Suzanne Maloney. “Vance’s word games can’t paper over that reality.”
As regional tensions escalate, the administration faces mounting questions about whether it’s deliberately provoking a broader conflict – and whether Trump’s non-interventionist stance was ever more than convenient campaign rhetoric. One thing is clear: bombing another nation’s nuclear facilities looks like war, no matter what the White House chooses to call it.