Vance defends war against Iran and says he doesn't know when the conflict will end

In a tense press conference this Thursday (3), the Vice President of the United States, J. D. Vance, defended the war against Iran started by his boss, Donald Trump. Vance said, however, that he would not call the conflict a war, that fuel prices are stabilizing, and when asked about the end of the conflict, he responded "I don't know" and "ask the Iranians."

"When you ask 'when is this going to end,' you're asking me a question which is 'when are the Iranians going to stop shooting at ships [in the Strait of Hormuz]?' I guess the reality is I don't know the answer, ask the Iranians," Vance said.

When he started the war by bombing Iran and killing its political leaders together with Israel, in February this year, Trump said the conflict would last a maximum of six weeks. On the 28th, the war completed six months without any ongoing negotiations for a new ceasefire or another horizon for the end of hostilities.

Vance also downplayed the fuel price crisis caused by the closure of Hormuz as a result of the war. "If the question is 'when will the fact that the Iranians are shooting at ships stop having an effect on energy markets?' the answer is: it's happening less and less," Vance said.

In fact, oil prices show no signs of cooling down. The value of a Brent barrel, a global reference, reached a peak of US$97 this Thursday — before the war, the average was around US$70.

Analysts say that the shock was only greater thanks to the depletion of strategic reserves in the USA and, mainly, in China, which cut around 40% of its imports of crude oil and restricted exports of refined fuel.

Furthermore, the number of ships passing through Hormuz remains negligible. On Wednesday (2), maritime traffic monitoring websites recorded six oil tankers crossing the route, most of them under strong American escort. Before the war, around 140 vessels of this type used the strait, vital for transporting oil and natural gas production from the Persian Gulf countries.

"We are not going to depend on the Iranians and expect them to behave responsibly or act in good faith," Vance continued, defending the White House's strategy. "We will use the tools we have at our disposal to ensure that the American people, first, never have to deal with the threat of an Iranian nuclear program and, second, that the global energy market is functioning."

Trump's vice president also refused to call the war a war. "I wouldn't call it a war. There is no fighting going on now. There have been incidents here and there, but the main operations lasted six weeks and since then we have destroyed their nuclear facilities," he said.

The damage done to Iran's nuclear industrial base is unclear, but its stockpile of 60% enriched uranium remains intact. This fissile material, however, is not yet at the level of purity necessary for an atomic bomb — more than 90% —, although it already exceeds by more than 50 percentage points what would be needed for strictly civilian use.

Vance also ignored the fact that the US again attacked Iran this Tuesday (1st), the same day that Trump ruled out negotiations with Tehran, saying that any agreement signed with the Iranians "is not worth the paper it is written on".