Vice President JD Vance said Thursday the United States will not set an “artificial timeline” for ending the conflict with Iran, telling reporters that American forces will remain engaged for as long as Iran keeps shooting at ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
“You’re asking me a question like, when will the Iranians stop shooting at ships? I think the reality is, I don’t know the answer to that question. You would have to ask the Iranians, when will the Iranians shooting at ships stop having an effect on world energy markets? And the answer is it has less effect day by day,” Vance said.
The remarks came during the first White House press briefing since former press secretary Karoline Leavitt left her post in August.
Vance made clear the administration is not banking on Tehran’s cooperation. The U.S. will not depend on the Iranians “behaving responsibly” or “negotiating in good faith,” he said, pointing to recent attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. Washington shelved negotiations after a Memorandum of Understanding fell apart in June, shifting instead to a strategy of economic and military pressure.
“What we’re going to do is use the tools that we have at our disposal to ensure that the American people, one, never have to deal with the threat of an Iranian nuclear program and, two, the world, energy markets are properly supplied,” Vance said.
How the conflict started
The fighting began Feb. 28, 2026, when the United States and its partners launched Operation Epic Fury, striking targets across Iran on President Trump’s orders. U.S. Central Command said Tuesday that American forces had completed a fresh wave of strikes inside Iran, hitting air defense sites, radar systems, maritime assets, mine-laying capabilities and communications infrastructure.
Vance stopped short of calling the ongoing standoff a war, noting there are no active shooting exchanges but rather “places where this is flared up,” while acknowledging major combat operations that lasted under six weeks.
“Since then, we destroyed, of course, their nuclear facilities with Midnight Hammer. With Epic Fury, we destroyed their defense industrial base for producing weapons and also a lot of their conventional military and then we made it harder for them to rebuild that nuclear program,” Vance said.
