US vice president JD Vance took aim at the country's "dumb former presidents," amid a massive split within Donald Trump's MAGA support base over the United States intervening in yet another war in the Middle East.
Vance made the remark in an interview to NBC News following US air strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities under Operation Midnight Hammer. This marked America's entry in the ongoing conflict between its ally Israel and the Islamic Republic.
"I empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East. I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents," Vance, who served in Iraq during his time in the Marine Corps, said.
On the other hand, Trump is a president who "actually knows how to accomplish America’s national security objectives," the vice president added.
There have been five US presidents in the last 25 years - three Democrats (Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden) and two Republicans (George W Bush and Trump himself). During Bush's presidency, the United States and its allies launched the "War on terror" in Afghanistan and entered Iraq in search of "weapons of mass destruction."
Meanwhile, Vance further asserted that America's war was not with Iran, but rather with Tehran's nuclear weapons programme.
“It is not going to be some long, drawn-out thing. We’ve got in, we’ve done the job of setting their nuclear programme back. We’re going to now work to permanently dismantle that nuclear program over the coming years, and that is what the president has set out to do. Simple principle: Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon," he remarked.
The US conducted strikes in Iran days after Trump gave himself two weeks to decide on whether to military action against the Asian country. This turned out to be a ruse as the US forces hit three nuclear facilities early Sunday morning in Iran.
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