If we survive this administration, it's going to be a miracle. During an interview on this Sunday's This Week on ABC, Vice President JD Vance started things off by telling host Jonathan Karl that we're "not at war with Iran," but "with Iran's nuclear program," before being asked about this statement from former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev:
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has claimed that a number of countries are now prepared to supply Iran with nuclear warheads following the recent American airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. In a series of posts on X, Medvedev said the US operation-targeting sites in Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordow - had not only failed to achieve its objective but had, in fact, produced the opposite result.
Meanwhile, Iran sought support from Russia, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stating that he would travel to Moscow to hold talks with President Vladimir Putin.
"What have the Americans accomplished with their nighttime strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran?" Medvedev asked, referring to the US airstrikes on Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. He claimed that the "critical infrastructure of the nuclear fuel cycle appears to have been unaffected or sustained only minor damage", adding that "enrichment of nuclear material - and, now we can say it outright, the future production of nuclear weapons - will continue".
Taking his criticism further, Medvedev, who is currently serving as the Deputy Chairman of Russia's Security Council, stated: "A number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads," without naming them.
After reading a portion of Medvedev's statements, Karl asked Vance, "are they -- they off base? I mean, they're -- they're saying that the nuclear program in Iran is -- is still well underway." Vance, of course, dismissed the rhetoric and defended Trump's dangerous escalation while pretending there won't be consequences:
VANCE: Well, first of all, I think it's a bizarre response, but I also don't know that that guy speaks for President Putin or for the Russian government.
One of the things that we've picked up, Jon, in our conversations with the Russians over the last few months, despite our many disagreements, of course, with the state of Russia, they've been very consistent that they don't want Iran to get a nuclear weapon. And -- and this is what I think many commentators underappreciate about what the president did last night.
Iran having a nuclear weapon, nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, is a disaster for pretty much everybody. It's one of the few issues where Russia, China and the United States have broad agreement is that we don't want to see a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. So, what the president did was very important. I'll let President Putin speak to what the official Russian position on this is.
But I feel very confident that both for Russia, for China, and most importantly, of course, for us, we don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. And I think that -- that goal is going to continue to animate American policy for the next few years.
There's been no verification as to whether Iran's nuclear sites were actually "obliterated" as Trump and Hegseth have claimed. As to the rest of the fallout from this, time will tell, but nothing good is going to come from this.
