Iran leadership is willing to take extreme measures to disrupt Gulf shipping, JD Vance says

According to Vance, the United States is now at a stage where a significant portion of its activity in the region is aimed at ensuring freedom of navigation and trade through the Strait of Hormuz.

One of the lessons from the war with Iran was that the country’s leadership is “really, really crazy” and is willing to take extreme measures to disrupt the flow of oil and gas in the Gulf, US Vice President JD Vance told Fox News in an interview on Monday night.

According to Vance, the United States is now at a stage where a significant portion of its activity in the region is aimed at ensuring freedom of navigation and trade through the Strait of Hormuz.

He said the US recently responded to Iranians who, he claimed, were preparing to lay mines in the strait.

“What strikes me as strange is that sometimes they even fire on their own allies, just to prevent the free flow of oil and gas,” Vance said.

Asked whether this was the reason behind US moves in Venezuela aimed at increasing oil production, he responded: “That is not the reason we are doing it, but it is certainly a positive benefit of the move.”

US strikes Iran for first time in weeks

On Sunday night, the US military struck two Iranian launchers on Larak Island after Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces were seen preparing to fire towards the Strait of Hormuz, a US official confirmed to The Jerusalem Post.

This strike marked the first US strike on Iran in several weeks.

Esther Davis, Amichai Stein, and Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.