{"id":2704158,"date":"2026-11-13T00:11:01","date_gmt":"2026-11-13T05:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/now-rubio-wears-the-war\/"},"modified":"2026-11-13T00:19:02","modified_gmt":"2026-11-13T05:19:02","slug":"now-rubio-wears-the-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/now-rubio-wears-the-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Now Rubio Wears the War"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">10<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fnow-rubio-wears-the-war%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2704158&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Trump\u2019s \u201cWe don\u2019t need a deal\u201d sidelined Vice President J.D. Vance\u2019s peace efforts and empowered a Rubio-led faction pushing an Iranian blockade. The blockade is costly, risks escalation around the Strait of Hormuz, and is likelier to provoke Tehran than force collapse, making Rubio the public face of a dangerous policy. Vance, who sought negotiations, has been politically damaged but could gain if seen as the anti-war figure thwarted by Rubio. The author is pessimistic about prospects for peace and warns Trump\u2019s stance traps the U.S. in a worsening Middle East crisis.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"c-blog-post__content s-wysiwyg s-wysiwyg--blog\">\n<div style=\"margin-bottom:30px;\" id=\"elevenlabs-audionative-widget\" data-height=\"90\" data-width=\"100%\" data-frameborder=\"no\" data-scrolling=\"no\" data-publicuserid=\"cb0d9922301244fcc1aeafd0610a8e90a36a320754121ee126557a7416405662\" data-playerurl=\"https:\/\/elevenlabs.io\/player\/index.html\" >Loading the <a href=\"https:\/\/elevenlabs.io\/text-to-speech\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Elevenlabs Text to Speech<\/a> AudioNative Player&#8230;<\/div>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/elevenlabs.io\/player\/audioNativeHelper.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script>                            <\/p>\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap wp-block-paragraph\">If you\u2019re a fan of covert White House infighting bursting, if only partly, into public view, then Thursday must have been a fun day for you.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe don\u2019t need an Iran deal,\u201d President Donald Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/AKDay89\/status\/2120891278745571439?a=ytL0QaLj16NUZ3E_uew&#038;s=20\">declared<\/a>, apparently giving up on diplomacy with Tehran.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This latest turn of the Trumpian diplomacy\u2013war wheel was widely interpreted as bad news for opponents of the Iran War and for supporters of Vice President J.D. Vance, who has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/navy-seizes-iranian-weapons-shipment-as-biden-administration-seeks-new-deal\/\" title=\"Navy Seizes Iranian Weapons Shipment as Biden Administration Seeks New Deal\">led peace negotiations<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>                         <!-- \/22404337467,3946880\/theamericanconservative-Leaderboard-Top -->                         <\/p>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1742316429780-0' style='min-width: 300px; min-height: 50px; max-width: 100%; '>                         <\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s neither.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe don\u2019t need a deal\u201d is an obvious and significant improvement over Trump\u2019s previous position: \u201cWe\u2019ll either make a deal or we\u2019ll make a war.\u201d That latter framing is how the U.S. got into the current Iran catastrophe in the first place. Trump has proven himself deal-incapable when it comes to the Islamic Republic, so the \u201cdeal or war\u201d dichotomy was always, in addition to being false, counterproductive to peace, as I <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/AKDay89\/status\/2120942531236024550?a=PkYlGrPS4TodLlolXX8&#038;s=20\">explained<\/a> to Responsible Statecraft in June. And anyway, Trump has also proven himself willing\u2014if not eager\u2014to attack Iran amid negotiations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As for the political repercussions for Vance, well, this will require some explaining.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Without question, the president was slapping down the Veep, removing him from the Iran file and siding with that faction of the White House, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, which opposes constructive diplomacy with Tehran. Trump\u2019s announcement came in the form of a Truth Social post in which the president instructed Vance to focus instead on corruption and crime in Democratic-run cities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In that sense, Trump\u2019s unexpected pronouncement represents a political victory for Rubio, who has promoted the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports as a middle position between war and diplomacy. For now, the Rubio strategy prevails. But it won\u2019t work. Rubio\u2019s victory is a Pyrrhic one that will lead to his undoing as a viable presidential candidate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thanks, perhaps, to Rubio\u2019s maneuvering, Trump has come to see the blockade as the easy \u201cstatus quo\u201d option, but as I explained in my <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/dont-relax-yet-trumps-iran-blockade-makes-more-war-likely\/\">other column<\/a> this week (and on a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/AKDay89\/status\/2120933901501632775?a=yP1GnI3N0sI6FwC2Wqs&#038;s=20\">recent episode<\/a> of a popular online news show), that\u2019s not right. The blockade builds pressure on Iran over time, and Middle East experts told me the Islamic Republic won\u2019t stand idly by while the U.S. destroys its economy. In other words, Tehran is more likely to lash out than back down or collapse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Moreover, the blockade is expensive to maintain and raises risks of an escalation spiral around the Strait of Hormuz. And even if the blockade somehow did effectuate state collapse in Iran, well, do you think the collapse of an enormous state in the Gulf region would be a good thing? To you and me, that would plainly be a very bad thing, but they\u2019re not thinking very clearly over at the White House these days.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rubio has made himself the most prominent and vocal supporter of this doomed strategy. And that means Rubio has made himself the face of the Iran War.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that is a major development.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In case you haven\u2019t noticed, our top diplomat hasn\u2019t been doing a whole lotta diplomacy when it comes to the Iran War (or the Russia\u2013Ukraine one, for that matter), and by that disgraceful means he\u2019s managed to distance himself from the administration\u2019s most unpopular policy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">No longer. The distance Rubio had cultivated has now collapsed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Quite the opposite for Vance, the only cabinet member who has taken up the gargantuan task of securing a peace deal with Iran. Given Trump\u2019s refusal to make the kind of concessions Tehran demands as part of a settlement, Vance\u2019s good intentions weren\u2019t translating into a lasting diplomatic\u2014or political\u2014win. Instead, Vance came to represent diplomatic failure, and in voters\u2019 minds, however unfairly, he became closely associated with the war, since he was often on the teevee talking about it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The whole situation was proving a political disaster for Vance\u2014a Marine veteran who made his name lambasting forever wars in the Middle East\u2014which helps explain his effort to subtly convey opposition to his boss\u2019s misbegotten war. That effort culminated in a not-very-subtle social media post in which the Veep blamed the conflict for the GOP\u2019s midterm-elections rout last week and made clearer than ever his preference for ending it ASAP. \u201cThe reason we lost is the war,\u201d Vance said, rather bluntly.<\/p>\n<section class=\"c-subscribe-email\" >\n<div class=\"l-container\">\n<div class=\"c-subscribe-email__wrap\">\n<div class=\"c-subscribe-email__head\">\n<h4 class=\"c-subscribe-email__heading\">Subscribe Today<\/h4>\n<h5 class=\"c-subscribe-email__subheading\">Get daily emails in your inbox<\/h5>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"c-subscribe-email__form-wrap\">      <!-- Begin Mailchimp Signup Form -->      <\/p>\n<div id=\"mc_embed_signup\">\n<form id=\"mc-embedded-subscribe-form\" class=\"validate\" action=\"https:\/\/theamericanconservative.us4.list-manage.com\/subscribe\/post?u=442e644c01f8e54e26e4ff3f8&#038;id=f7b67cac40\" method=\"post\" name=\"mc-embedded-subscribe-form\" novalidate target=\"_blank\">\n<div id=\"mc_embed_signup_scroll\">\n<div class=\"c-subscribe-email__fields\">              <label for=\"mce-EMAIL\" class=\"u-screenreader-text\">Email Address:<\/label>              <input id=\"mce-EMAIL\" class=\"c-subscribe-email__field\" name=\"EMAIL\" type=\"email\" value=\"\" placeholder=\"Your Email\" \/>              <input id=\"mc-embedded-subscribe\" class=\"c-subscribe-email__submit o-button o-button--red-500 o-button--solid\" name=\"subscribe\" type=\"submit\" value=\"Subscribe\" \/>            <\/div>\n<div id=\"mce-responses\" class=\"clear\">\n<div id=\"mce-error-response\" class=\"response\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"mce-success-response\" class=\"response\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>              <!-- real people should not fill this in and expect good things - do not remove this or risk form bot signups-->            <\/p>\n<div class=\"u-screenreader-text\" aria-hidden=\"true\">              <input tabindex=\"-1\" name=\"b_442e644c01f8e54e26e4ff3f8_f7b67cac40\" type=\"text\" value=\"\" \/>            <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/form>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>      <!--End mc_embed_signup-->          <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, I\u2019m more concerned with ending a war that is bad for America than I am with the political prospects of Vance or the Republican Party, but ask yourself, my Vance-adoring readers, and try to process these latest developments with as much cynicism as you can muster: Is it not better for Vance to become the guy who condemned and tried to stop the Iran War but was thwarted by Rubio? And is it not better for Vance that Rubio becomes the face of the Iran debacle, while the Veep turns his attention to crime and corruption?<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is better\u2014much better, I humbly submit, even if few political analysts seem to agree with me.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As for the war itself and the prospects for peace, I harbor zero optimism. Maintain for another moment that cynicism that you mustered and confront this hard truth: There are no sources of hope in this Mideast fiasco, no obvious ways out, as Trump has laid for himself a hellish trap he cannot escape. Buckle up.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s a paraphrase of the piece:<\/p>\n<p>If you enjoy seeing hidden White House power struggles spill into the open, Thursday offered plenty. Trump said, \u201cWe don\u2019t need an Iran deal,\u201d signaling a retreat from diplomacy with Tehran. This shift sidelines Vice President J.D. Vance on Iran policy and aligns with a Rubio-led faction that favors a middle-ground approach-sanctions and a blockade-between diplomacy and war. Trump even used a Truth Social post to tell Vance to focus on corruption and crime in Democratic-run cities. In short, Rubio\u2019s stance gains the upper hand, presenting a political win for him, though the author argues it\u2019s a hollow victory likely to backfire politically.<\/p>\n<p>The blockade idea is portrayed as the easy \u201cstatus quo\u201d option that won\u2019t actually work: it would pressure Iran over time, but experts warn Tehran would likely respond rather than simply collapse, and the effort is costly and risks a broader escalation around the Strait of Hormuz. Even if it did topple Iran, that outcome would be undesirable for regional stability. Rubio becomes the most visible advocate of this doomed strategy, making him the face of the Iran War, while Trump\u2019s top diplomat has largely disappeared from active diplomacy on these issues.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Vance-the only cabinet member pursuing a peace deal with Iran-found his good intentions reframed as a diplomatic failure because he\u2019s been associated with the war through public appearances. He even bluntly attributed GOP losses to the war in a recent post, signaling his preference to end it. The author argues, perhaps cynically but with a focus on preventing more harm, that it would be better for Vance to be the anti-war voice and for Rubio to bear the blame for the debacle, though few analysts share that view. As for peace prospects, the piece is pessimistic: Trump has locked himself into a trap with no clear exit, and the outlook for finding a real path to peace remains dismal. Buckle up<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4462,"featured_media":2704159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/tac.imgix.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/GettyImages-2193481738-scaled-e1741474670212.jpg?auto=compress&#038;crop=faces%2Centropy&#038;fit=crop&#038;fm=jpg&#038;h=630&#038;ixlib=php-3.3.1&#038;q=80&#038;w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[76835,5894,5438,50434],"class_list":["post-2704158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-current-events-2","tag-politics","tag-rubio","tag-war-2"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/tac.imgix.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/GettyImages-2193481738-scaled-e1741474670212.jpg?auto=compress&#038;crop=faces%2Centropy&#038;fit=crop&#038;fm=jpg&#038;h=630&#038;ixlib=php-3.3.1&#038;q=80&#038;w=1200","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2704158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4462"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2704158"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2704158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2704163,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2704158\/revisions\/2704163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2704159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2704158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2704158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2704158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}