Key Points
- Vance sent a letter to Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei to revive stalled peace talks, officials said.
- Trump directed the outreach while threatening to restart the war after next week's midterm elections.
- The channel bypasses Iran's diplomats and targets the hard-liners who gained power during the war.
The latest:
Vice President JD Vance has opened a channel to one of Iran’s most powerful hard-liners, sending a letter to Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, in an effort to restart peace negotiations, U.S. officials and people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal. The letter went out at President Trump’s direction, one person said. Trump has publicly hinted at fresh strikes within weeks.
Details:
- The recipient: Rezaei is secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and the longest-serving former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, having led the force through the 1980s war with Iraq. He has emerged as an influential hawkish voice as U.S. military threats mount, according to the report.
- The content: The letter and subsequent U.S.-Iranian discussions carried no specific peace proposal, a person familiar with the matter said, focusing instead on a possible framework for negotiations. Vance is testing whether enough common ground exists to persuade Trump against ordering a short, intense attack on Iran.
- Tehran’s precondition: Rezaei said last week that Iran would not negotiate with Washington until specific core demands were met, without publicly enumerating them. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on social media that Iran’s armed forces are ready to defend the country while Tehran keeps giving diplomacy a chance.
- Trump’s position: Trump said last week the administration was not talking to the Iranians and suggested strikes were coming. On Tuesday night he told reporters Iran wanted a deal but kept tapping it along, possibly waiting for the election, and that waiting would not help them.
- The reasoning: Some U.S. officials argue that talking to Iranian hard-liners may produce a better diplomatic result, the report said, because that faction has accumulated power in Tehran since the United States and Israel killed regime leaders at the war’s outset.
- Vance’s record: Vance has publicly backed the Iran war but privately expressed reservations about prolonging it, pressing for more robust diplomacy before Trump launched Operation Epic Fury in February. Trump later named him lead negotiator, and Vance traveled abroad twice to meet Iranian counterparts.
- The failed deal: A memorandum of understanding reached in June collapsed two weeks after signing over conflicting interpretations of how to reopen shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Talks mediated by Qatar and Pakistan have since failed to break the deadlock.
- The gap: Washington demands upfront nuclear concessions; Tehran demands immediate economic relief. The United States maintains an economic blockade on Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz, with oil still flowing through the contested waterway, though not in volumes sufficient to ease high energy prices.
- Rezaei’s threats: Earlier this month Rezaei said Tehran could target the United Arab Emirates, which has largely escaped attack since late spring, along with data centers and internet cables across the region. On Sunday he hosted security chiefs from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey in Tehran.
- The responses: A Vance spokesman declined to discuss the talks and the White House referred questions to the vice president’s team. An Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said he had no information on the outreach. Rezaei and the Supreme National Security Council could not be reached.
Background:
Trump has made dismantling Iran’s nuclear program a national-security priority of his second term, alternating between pursuing a negotiated settlement and bombing Tehran toward submission. The war began in February with Operation Epic Fury, whose opening strikes killed senior Iranian regime figures.
Between the lines:
Routing the approach through Rezaei rather than Araghchi could sideline Iran’s diplomatic track entirely. The domestic timing is equally loaded: Republicans are braced to lose House and Senate seats, voters have cited the Iran conflict and fuel costs as sources of frustration, and Vance is the early front-runner for the 2028 Republican nomination.
What’s next
Watch next week’s midterm results, which Trump has tied to the timing of renewed strikes, and whether Tehran publicly specifies the core demands Rezaei says must be met before any talks resume.
