How Iran is exposing Vance and Rubio’s 2028 rivalry

Presidents historically have at least paid lip service to the idea that they are supposed to consult Congress before launching a military action.

“Presidents historically have at least paid lip service to the idea that they are supposed to consult Congress before launching a military action”

Salon

While it’s usually obvious they will proceed anyway, they have nonetheless made the effort, if only to obtain the political cover they might need should things not go as planned.

Salon

In the case of Donald Trump’s current misadventure in Iran, it’s becoming clear there was no plan — and since the president feels he is owed support for anything he does, he didn’t even bother with the niceties.

Since Vietnam at least, this dynamic has tended to put Democrats in a bind more often than Republicans.

The reason for that is simple: The GOP has traditionally been unified in its zeal to go to war, while Democrats have been more divided.

Salon

For a couple of decades, this caused Democratic presidential aspirants to twist themselves into pretzels trying to find a sweet spot between the party’s anti-war base and its more hawkish minority.

Now, as Trump’s Iran war is intensifying and expanding, Republicans are being forced to confront their own intra-party divisions and rivalries.

Now, as Trump’s Iran war is intensifying and expanding, Republicans are being forced to confront their own intra-party divisions and rivalries.

This has become clear not as a result of some dramatic debate about the war and its aims — because there hasn’t been one.

“Presidents historically have at least paid lip service to the idea that they are supposed to consult Congress before launching a military action”

Salon

Instead this is best seen in the escalating rivalry between Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, both of whom appear to already be vying for the Republican nomination in 2028.

The vice president, on the other hand, has been seen as the frontrunner in most public polling for months.

But he has been a cipher when it comes to the administration’s military “excursions,” as Trump calls them, and has reportedly even been exiled from the makeshift Mar-a-Lago situation room.

Vance is known to be the voice in the room — at least when he’s there — who pushes against military action.

He’s not coming out against these wars; Vance is not politically suicidal.

But he’s playing it very close to the vest, seemingly waiting to see how it all shakes out.

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This is tricky for Vance, who is often seen as the “one true MAGA” carrying on the philosophy of America First and “no new wars” philosophy, which is no longer operative with anyone except the elite MAGA influencers.

But he can’t afford to overtly separate himself from Trump.

The machinations of both camps are coming into focus.

By lashing himself to Trump’s foreign policy mast, Rubio has to hope that these wars go well if he is going to win the nomination.

Trump is said to be favoring him, but the danger is that if things in Iran go south, the secretary will be the one Trump blames for the failure.

Vance is trying to have it both ways.

If things go well with the war, Rubio will reap the political benefits.

So Vance is quietly rooting for the war to fail while keeping his fingerprints off any of it.

After watching Democrats’ experience with the Iraq debacle, Vance, Rubio and their fellow Republicans should have learned that staking one’s political fortunes on the outcome of war is a fool’s game.

But with Trump in charge, they really have little choice.

Good luck to whomever wins the prize.

It’s likely not to be one worth having.