Islamabad, Pakistan – Standing in front of reporters at the White House, US President Donald Trump was asked whether a ceasefire with Iran was possible.
“We have an active, willing partner on the other side,” he said Monday, adding that the proposal on the table was “an important step” before quickly qualifying that “it’s not good enough.”
Pressed on who is leading Washington’s diplomatic effort, Trump confirmed what had been emerging through backchannels for several days.
“They’re doing it with Marco, JD. We have a number of people who are doing that,” he said, listing Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio among the administration’s key negotiators for the first time.
In an administration that has struggled to craft a coherent diplomatic strategy for a war that began more than five weeks ago, Vance has largely maintained a distance from Operation Epic Fury.
But Trump’s statement was public confirmation of how Vance has quietly emerged as a central actor in Pakistan’s last-ditch efforts to pull the US and Iran back from the brink of their most devastating war yet.
The US President threatened over the weekend to bomb Iranian power and energy facilities if Tehran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s peacetime oil and gas supplies pass, by early Wednesday Iran time. On Monday, he launched an abuse-filled attack against Iran on his Truth social platform.
And on Tuesday, about 12 hours before his self-imposed deadline for Iran, Trump further escalated his apocalyptic rhetoric.
“An entire civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps responded by warning that if Trump took military action, all of its sanctions against the targets would be lifted, putting the broader region at risk. Earlier in the day, Iran’s Kharg Island, its main export hub, was bombed, and Iran attacked the Jubail petrochemical facility in Saudi Arabia.
Amid the attacks and threats, sources close to the mediation efforts said efforts are still on to get the US and Iran to agree on Pakistan’s proposal to stop the war in two phases.
Whether those efforts are able to defuse the escalating rhetoric being used by the US and Iran and instead bring them closer to a peace deal will be a test of Vance’s clout with Trump and whether his presence at the talks prompts Iran to negotiate, the sources said.
Vance’s known role
The night before Trump’s speech, officials familiar with mediation efforts in Pakistan confirmed to Al Jazeera that the country’s army chief of staff, Field Marshal Asim Munir, had spoken with Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
The call was part of an intensive mediation effort launched by Pakistan since late March. Islamabad hosted the foreign ministers of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt on March 29 in a coordinated effort to end hostilities. The meeting followed earlier consultations in Riyadh on March 19 in which the same regional powers began to align their positions.
Earlier, at a Cabinet meeting on March 26, Trump had asked his vice president to brief officials in Iran, formally acknowledging his role in the diplomatic effort.
Pakistani media quoted a senior civilian official familiar with the talks as saying that a US delegation led by Vance was set to visit Islamabad twice for direct discussions with their Iranian counterparts.
According to the senior official, Tehran requested more time for internal deliberations and ultimately declined to participate, leading to both trips being canceled at the last minute.
Still, by last weekend, the effort had generated solid momentum. Iran confirmed receiving the ceasefire proposal, opening the door to broader talks. However, Tehran ultimately rejected the plan, calling it “illogical”.
Why does Tehran view Vance differently?
For Vance, Iran’s clear priority predates the war.
On February 26, Witkoff and Jared Kushner – Trump’s son-in-law and, like Witkoff, a real estate magnate – held a third round of indirect nuclear talks in Geneva with Iran’s Araghchi. Omani Foreign Minister Badr Al Busaidi, who mediated the talks, emerged optimistic.
“A peace deal is within our reach,” he told US-based outlet CBS News the next day, describing “significant, significant and unprecedented progress”, which he said also included a commitment by Iran not to stockpile enriched uranium.
“The bigger picture is that the deal is in our hands,” he said.
Nevertheless, two days later, American and Israeli forces attacked several Iranian sites, starting the war. The first wave of attacks resulted in the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei along with several other Iranian leaders.
From Tehran’s perspective, this was a second betrayal: US officials had been engaged in talks with Tehran even in June before Israel and then the US bombed Iran during the 12-day war.
Javad Heran-Niya, director of the Persian Gulf Study Group in Tehran, said Iran initially saw Witkoff as a moderate in Trump’s inner circle and accepted his role on that basis.
When Kushner joined the talks ahead of the February round, given his closeness to Trump, Tehran saw it as a sign of seriousness.
“Iran’s assessment was that the US was serious about talks,” Hiran-Niya told Al Jazeera.
But America’s decision to join Israel in starting the war while negotiations were still underway overturned that assessment.
“There is a feeling among Iranian officials that the purpose of the pre-war talks was essentially to buy time to meet the military situation,” Heran-Niya said.
Western media later reported that Tehran refused to engage with Kushner or Witkoff after the Geneva talks. CNN cited regional sources as saying that Iran views Vance as more sympathetic to ending the conflict than other US officials.
Internal dynamics in Iran have also shaped this priority, Heran-Niya said. Following Khamenei’s death, factions within the political system have competed for influence.
The war has strengthened the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps while leaving the government of President Massoud Pezeshkian with limited authority over strategic decisions.
Heran-Niya said Pakistan’s acceptance of talks, including mediation, came from the highest levels of the Iranian system. However, the format remains politically sensitive.
As of Tuesday evening in Islamabad, government officials described the talks as being at an advanced stage.
The emerging framework envisions a sequenced process: an initial agreement to establish confidence-building measures, followed by a formal ceasefire if these steps are followed.
Details of these measures have not been made public, and Pakistani officials have avoided prejudicial decisions by Washington and Tehran.
Iran’s Ambassador to Pakistan Reza Amiri Moghadam hinted at progress on Tuesday.
In a post on Twitter, he said that Islamabad’s “positive and productive efforts in good faith and in good offices to prevent war” were approaching a “critical, sensitive stage”.
It was the clearest public indication yet from an Iranian official that Pakistan’s mediation had moved beyond preliminary discussions.
Yet even as diplomatic momentum increased, Trump appeared to be escalating his rhetoric.
On Tuesday, he posted on Truth Social: “Tonight an entire civilization will die, never to be brought back again,” before suggesting that “complete and total regime change” was already underway in Iran.
“47 years of extortion, corruption and death will finally end,” he said.
Politics, perception and 2028
For Vance, Iran is not just about personalities. This is also implicit in his record on foreign intervention.
As a senator, Vance argued in a 2023 Wall Street Journal article that Trump’s success in office depended partly on avoiding new wars.
In 2024, he warned that conflict with Iran would not serve US interests and would be “a huge diversion of resources”.
A few days before the February 28 attacks, he told The Washington Post: “I think we all like the diplomatic option. But it really depends on what the Iranians do and say.”
Heran-Nia said Tehran’s view of Vance is based on two factors.
At first, he was initially seen as an opponent of the war, even though he later aligned with the administration’s position.
Second, unlike Witkoff and Kushner, he was not involved in the negotiations that took place before the strike.
“From a symbolic point of view, it is more appropriate for Iran to use them to justify the process to public opinion,” Heran-Niya said.
He said Vance’s wartime conduct reinforced the perception in Iran that the vice president was cautiously positioning himself for the presidency.
Vance, widely considered the frontrunner for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, will have to balance loyalty to Trump with skepticism toward protracted Middle East conflicts.
Analysts said both Vance and Rubio face risks. Rubio’s support for war could become a liability if the conflict drags on or ends poorly.
Meanwhile, if Vance moves too far from Trump’s positions, he risks looking disloyal.
Establishing oneself as someone who worked to end the war offers a possible way out of that tension.
That calculation went unnoticed in Tehran. “This has created a perception within Iran that the vice president is taking a cautious approach to potentially assuming the role of president in the future,” Heran-Niya said. “Working within Trump’s system, he tries to maintain an independent viewpoint.”
