Vance Writes to an IRGC Hard-Liner While Hormuz Stays Shut. Washington Needs One Message

Written By TNT Staff, Posted on October 30, 2026

Featured photo: Vice President JD Vance in his official U.S. Senate portrait. 118th U.S. Congress, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Vice President JD Vance has written directly to one of the most hard-line figures in the Islamic Republic, proposing to restart talks before President Trump decides whether to resume strikes on Iran. The outreach may yet produce something. But the way Washington explained it this week should worry anyone who believes peace comes through strength.

The letter went to Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, who has “a direct line to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei,” Axios reported. A U.S. official told Axios the letter said any negotiations “require discussions on the nuclear issue,” and that “the President was enthusiastic about the letter.” Axios called it the most senior U.S. outreach to Tehran in several months. The New York Times reported that Trump read and approved the letter, that Qatari mediators delivered it on Sunday, and that Vance offered to lead the U.S. side, as he did at the June talks in Switzerland.

Who got the letter

Rezaei is not a moderate. He is a former commander in chief of the Revolutionary Guards, the Times noted, and took the security council post in August. In 2007, Interpol upheld a Red Notice sought by Argentina for him over the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people; Iran rejects the accusation. He is on the U.S. Treasury’s sanctions list. On Oct. 11, Rezaei said Iran had “clearly stated that the Strait of Hormuz would not be opened to them, and no negotiations would take place, until these conditions are met,” according to Israel National News, citing Iranian state media.

Two stories from one White House

Here is where the message gets muddled. Asked Wednesday about the letter, Trump described it as humanitarian. “Basically, it’s getting supplies in to help people that are not well,” he told reporters, according to Axios. Asked whether he had told Vance to restart peace talks, he reportedly answered, “No. They need help with medical supplies and various things.”

So which is it? A letter that sets nuclear talks as the price of avoiding strikes, or a note about medicine? Tehran will read the gap between those two answers as hesitation. Iran’s demands have not moved. It wants the U.S. to lift its naval blockade, release frozen funds and allow oil sales before talks begin, Axios reported. Washington wants nuclear negotiations first. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Wednesday that Iran “continues to give diplomacy a chance.”

Strength is the message

None of this means talking is wrong. Trump has used maximum pressure to bring adversaries to the table before, and the blockade is real leverage. Vance’s demand that the nuclear file come first is the right one. But leverage works only when the other side believes it. A regime that has closed one of the world’s most important oil routes, and where a sitting lawmaker said this week that Iran should “leave the NPT and build an atomic bomb,” according to Iran International, should hear one clear message from Washington: the nuclear program is on the table, the blockade stays until it is, and the President is ready to act if talks fail.

Rezaei is expected to reply by Thursday, according to the Times. If he does, the administration should make sure the reply is to that message, and not to a story about medical supplies.

TNT Staff