Lost in the cacophony of commentary on the U.S. war on Iran is a brilliant opening gambit that Vice President JD Vance recently proffered as an off-ramp for the U.S. war on Iran: Washington would have no objection to a peaceful Iran nuclear energy program that included domestic uranium enrichment levels that were below the threshold levels of highly enriched uranium required for nuclear weapons.

Vance declared in an Oct. 6 interview, “If you [Iran] don’t want a nuclear weapon, then why do you need 60% enriched fuel? And if you want to show commitment to not ​building a nuclear weapon, don’t build highly enriched fuel … if they [Iran] want to show a commitment to not building a nuclear weapon, they would do something meaningful on ​their enrichment capacity.”