If the Islamabad memorandum is as strong as Vice President JD Vance claims, there should be no reason to portray it inaccurately. But in fact, there is much space between Vance’s rendition of the deal and its actual wording. 

In hindsight, it should be clear why Vance had earlier gone on a media tour praising the strength of the deal’s structure without releasing the actual text. On June 16 — just one day before the wording was made public, Vance, the deal’s chief architect, appeared on The Megyn Kelly Show, known for its opposition to the war, to explain the agreement’s structure. His goal was to justify the intervention, which, combined with an early, sound resolution, straddles both sides of the MAGA divide on it. But to accomplish that acrobatic feat, he was forced to vouch for wisdom to the resolution, which was largely imaginary.