Only Vance Can Go to Pakistan – RedState

As I gathered my ideas for this column, I checked over at our sister web site Townhall.com and discovered that Erick Erickson had stolen a good deal of my thunder. Not a shock, as Erick is a good man, and like the remainder of us who are long-time, dedicated conservatives, states the apparent about what the nation faces in the ever-so-frail cease-fire with Iran: the risk isn’t so a lot Iran’s army capabilities or terrorism, it’s the very nature of the regime.

Lying is in its DNA.

Erick leads with a abstract of taqiyya, which I’ll just shortly re-state right here as the Islamic doctrine of mendacity or deception in service of the religion.

About a month in the past, I wrote right here that “theo-crazy” Iran was “defeated.”  By every measure of army capability, that declaration stays indeniable.  The only approach that modifications is if Iran will get a nuke.

READ MORE: Via Iran and Venezuela, Trump Makes the Cold War Great Again

Donald Trump is not going to allow that.  But short of a substantial and dedicated ground deployment that no one desires, there are only two methods to comprise the nuclear risk – periodic operations like Epic Fury and Midnight Hammer, or a verifiable give up by Iran of their nuclear program, which for them would quantity to give up in complete.

But back to “theo-crazy”: by Western requirements of diplomacy and worldwide law, Iran shouldn’t be a “rational” regime. It subscribes to a barbaric, medieval model of Islam that makes it particularly inscrutable for the final Westerner. Their worldview, untethered to ideas, common assumptions, and beliefs of the European Enlightenment and pluralist society, doesn’t ponder or contemplate such notions, besides to dismiss and denigrate them. Expediting the arrival of the “Mahdi,” their messiah, as Erickson writes, is the fruits of this outlook – it’s a totalitarian religion. And they welcome reaching this violently and apocalyptically.

By advantage of these traits, and many more, Iranians are decidedly not Western. Thereby, Western diplomacy and worldwide law are of no worth – even more so illegitimate and outright evil, so any concession, a lot less “deal” short of unconditional give up proffered by such adherents can’t be assigned a lot, if any, confidence.  Any other conclusion is delusion, or worse, foolishness.

Thus the teetering ceasefire. And the dispatch of Vice President Vance to lead negotiations in Islamabad this weekend. Republican and conservative hawks are suspicious of the vice president and his well-documented hesitance on both Trump operations against Iran, not to point out the VP’s friendship with Woke Reich personalities.

But this might very properly be a calculated Trump deal-making tactic, a very dialed-down model of “Only Nixon can go to China.”  

The Iranians have been clamoring for Vance, so he’s giving him to them.

READ MORE: Iran Tries to Play Games, but Trump Just Let Them Know How Few Cards They Have

Vance Puts Iran on Notice Ahead of Talks – ‘Don’t Try to Play the U.S.’

But it’s also doubtless no accident that just days in advance of the VP’s deeply-fraught Islamabad negotiations that the president leveled his second broadside in two months via his Truth Social platform at conservative/Republican-adjacent online personalities (referred to in some corners as “Podcastistan”).

pic.twitter.com/S08mFUxUmR

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 9, 2026

He’s sending the vice president to Islamabad, but the clear message stays – Donald Trump calls the photographs.  And that means no nukes, no terrorism (including neighbor-country bullying), and no pirating the Strait of Hormuz.

For both the mullahs and the Trump administration, this in the end means unconditional give up. When you might be confronted with an adversary reliant on lies, no promise or guarantee might be taken or made with confidence. (Much less the fact that no-nukes is, again, de facto unconditional give up for the mullahs, as their political targets require them.)

Can then, a answer be discovered, this weekend, or any other time, given these phrases and circumstances?

When I called the Iranians “theo-crazy” a month in the past, it was in the context of an admittedly snark-heavy piece. But my critical level there, which I come back to now, is that Trump’s confrontation of the mullahs is a smaller piece of a bigger strategy. I called it “Making the Cold War Great Again.”

During the 50-year, US-Soviet standoff, superpower peace was maintained in half (and prosperity concomitantly fostered in the United States) by containing Soviet adventuring and expansionism through proxies. Iran is one of today’s proxies. Trump, by denying Iran’s targets, concurrently incorporates today’s aspiring “Evil Empire,” China, by denial of power from Iranian and other Gulf States’ oil. And if he will get Iran’s give up and makes them an ally (as he’s already successfully performed with its neighbors), he additional tightens the noose not only on China, but on the former-Soviet superpower Russia, by driving its oil income down with new Iranian and other Gulf States’ provide on the world market.

So as we’ve seen, the ceasefire has been fraught, and given the character of the adversary, a waste of time. Delivering an outright unconditional give up by Vance as emissary could be the proverbial grasp stroke. Otherwise, Cold War-style containment would be the inevitable default.

In either, case the president will probably be, as always, conserving America First. The only fear is if Vance goes “Woke Reich” in Islamabad – extremely unlikely given his boss and Vance’s 2028 ambitions.  

“Only Vance can go to Pakistan.”

Editor’s Note: For a long time, former presidents have been all speak and no motion. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the risk from Iran once and for all.

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