By Humeyra Pamuk and Bo Erickson
WASHINGTON, March 16 (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President JD Vance on Monday expressed support for the way President Donald Trump was handling the war in Iran and said he trusted him to make sure that "the mistakes of the past" are not repeated.
Vance's comments appeared to be an effort to counter questions about whether his well-known anti-war and isolationist views put him at odds with Trump. Since the war began on February 28, Vance had not publicly offered unequivocal support for it.
Part of the speculation over a possible disagreement had been triggered by Trump's comments in previous weeks that Vance, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps two decades ago, was "philosophically a little bit different" than him and that he was "maybe less enthusiastic" about attacking Iran.
Vance, asked on Monday if he was "onboard" with the war and whether he had any "hesitation," said the president has long said Iran should not obtain a nuclear weapon and that he agreed with him.
"I think one big difference is...we have a smart president whereas in the past, we've had dumb presidents and I trust President Trump to get the job done, to do a good job for the American people, and to make sure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated," said Vance, standing alongside Trump during an Oval Office event.
Vance, once a self-described "never-Trumper," wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal in early 2023 saying Trump's best foreign policy was not starting any wars during his first four years in office between 2017 to 2021.
"My entire adult lifetime has been shaped by presidents who threw America into unwise wars and failed to win them," wrote Vance, who has also been openly critical of Washington sending billions of dollars worth of weapons to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia's invasion.
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Ryan Patrick Jones in Toronto; Editing by Caitlin Webber, Colleen Jenkins and Rosalba O'Brien)
