Obama’s Iran theory: diplomacy, inspections, sanctions relief, reintegration.
Vance’s Iran theory: performance, verification, sanctions relief, reintegration.
Same premise: the Iranian regime is a normalization problem — a regime that can be pulled into legitimate state behavior if the incentives are right.
But the regime doesn’t want legitimacy on our terms. It wants the benefits of legitimacy while keeping the leverage of terrorism, proxies, missiles, and nuclear pressure.
The conservative answer is the reverse: break the leverage, then impose the terms.
That is what “we win, they lose” means.
JD Vance on Iran:
We are extending an open hand to Iran. If they want to change their relationship with us, we will change our relationship with Iran.
That's the offer.