Vance Sees Path to Iran Deal as Netanyahu Presses Trump for New Strikes

On Monday, the day before American midterm voters went to the polls, Vice President JD Vance told reporters that a negotiated settlement with Iran is still within reach. He said he had spoken with President Donald Trump about an hour earlier, and that the two of them feel pretty good about the prospects. The deal he has in mind would head off Trump's threat to order new strikes on Iran once the elections are over.

Vance had sent a letter last week to Mohsen Rezaei, Iran's security chief. The White House has said little about what it contains. Trump told reporters it dealt with helping Iran obtain medical supplies and various other things. Iran acknowledged receiving it last week. Rezaei told state television that the tone from Washington has completely changed, calling that a very good sign. He also gave no details and said he had not replied.

Vance said the administration's central concern is that Iran take substantive action on its nuclear program. He said there is a pathway, but it requires a firm and verifiable commitment that Tehran will not rebuild that program.

The optimism sits alongside pressure in the opposite direction. According to two regional officials and a third person familiar with the matter, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is lobbying for another wave of strikes after the U.S. elections. One official said he is working with senior figures in the U.S. administration to persuade Trump to launch a quick but extensive air campaign, and that Trump does not appear to have decided. A person briefed on a weekend call between the two leaders said Netanyahu pressed his case and Trump would not commit. The White House did not directly answer questions about the call, the Israeli government did not immediately comment, and Netanyahu has been silent on Iran since Israel's own election. The sources spoke anonymously because they were describing classified briefings.

The political backdrop in Israel matters here. Netanyahu and his far-right allies lost their parliamentary majority in last week's election, and a return to full-scale war could help him form an emergency government. He had pushed for renewed strikes even before the vote, as he sought to emphasize his security credentials to a public still scarred by Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

On the diplomatic track, the two officials said Qatari mediators held two rounds of talks with Iranian officials last week. They are trying to build a framework in which Iran stops its attacks in the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. lifts its blockade of Iranian ports. More talks are planned this week. Iran wants guarantees that Washington will honor its side of any agreement, noting that the U.S. and Israel have twice attacked it while nuclear negotiations were under way. October saw the most attacks on commercial ships in the strait since March, as Iran sought to pressure the U.S. economically over the blockade.

The war is now eight months old. It began Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli strikes that killed Iran's previous supreme leader. His son, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has not been seen publicly since. He recently met military chiefs and said any response to a threat from the U.S. or Israel should be immediate and without geographic limits, and he urged widening the list of potential targets. An Associated Press analysis found Iranian strikes on more than two dozen U.S. bases have caused billions of dollars in equipment damage. The conflict has cost U.S. taxpayers at least $47 billion.

At home, the war has shown up at the gas pump, which has weighed on Republicans as they defend both chambers of Congress. Oil prices fell sharply Monday on signs of diplomatic progress. In a Washington speech billed as his closing argument, Trump pointed to the drop and played down the conflict, saying he didn't know if it could even be called a war since there had been no fighting for months.

Regional allies are uneasy. Other Middle Eastern partners of the U.S. warn that new strikes would destabilize the region and could prompt Yemen's Houthis to escalate attacks on Saudi Arabia and Red Sea shipping, with Iran-backed militias in Iraq possibly joining in, a third regional official said. Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman spoke with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday about regional developments and the Houthis' continued attacks on Saudi Arabia. At the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain, UAE adviser Anwar Gargash said the U.S. and Iranian positions are far apart and that if they are not bridged, there is cause to worry about the worst. Egypt's Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said the next escalation would be more dangerous and more destructive and would lead nowhere. China said it will send a special envoy to Iran, Oman and Saudi Arabia in early to mid-November.

What to watch after Tuesday is whether Trump follows the Qatari-mediated talks or Netanyahu's push for a new air campaign.