JD Vance fearmongers over Iranian explosive ‘nuclear vest’ to justify the war
Vice President JD Vance made up a theoretical threat straight out of science fiction to justify the ongoing war on Iran. It would most certainly be a tragedy if Iranian combatants had access to exploding nuclear vests—except they don’t, and it would be impossible to construct such a device.
“The president summarized this very ably. But look, the Iranian conventional military is effectively destroyed. They don’t have a navy. They don’t have the ability to hit us like they could have a few weeks ago,” Vance said during a press conference.
“There’s been a lot of reporting about diplomatic options about negotiations. There’s, of course, Pete and his team—there are further military options. But what we have now that we didn’t have when the president took over a year ago is the ability to use every tool at our disposal to ensure that Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon,” he continued.
“You talk about people who walk into a supermarket and have a vest on, and they blow up a vest. And a couple of people get killed, and it’s a terrible tragedy. But what happens if what’s on the vest is not something that can kill a couple of people but can kill many, many tens and thousands of people?” Vance posits, implying that Iran could create nuclear vests.
“That is the most important American national security objective that exists for any administration at anytime. You don’t want the worst people to have a nuclear weapon,” Vance defends. The Trump administration has defended the need to go to war with Iran. They often cite Iran’s alleged nuclear capabilities as a reason for their preemptive attack.
From debilitated to nuclear threat
This claim goes against a claim he made in 2025. The White House issued a statement that Iran’s nuclear facilities have been obliterated. “I can say to the American people with great confidence that they are much further away from a nuclear program today than they were 24 hours ago. That was the objective of the mission,” Vance said in the statement.
So how did Iran go from having a vital nuclear site destroyed to becoming a nuclear threat? What development happened for Vance to speculate that Iran could have wearable nuclear vests in the foreseeable future? There’s no evidence to support the vice president’s claim. To give him credit, what he posed is just a theoretical scenario, and he phrased it that way.
But when giving justification for a war that will endanger thousands of American military personnel, shouldn’t the example be concrete? It would’ve sufficed to say that Iran is on the precipice of reaching nuclearization and planning to attack the United States. But in multiple instances, Iran was said not to have a nuclear weapon. If it could not achieve that task, then it would be difficult for the country to create compact nuclear weapons.
Why nuclear vests are a work of sci-fi
The W54 warhead was made in the 1950s and was the smallest and lightest fission bomb made by the US military. It weighed 51 pounds and still needed a tripod-mounted or jeep-mounted recoilless rifle (M28 or M29 Davy Crockett) to be fired. If used in battle, the side that shot the warhead could be exposed to a significant dose of radiation. Over time, the effects would be lethal.
This is why “nuclear vests” produced by Iran that can be detonated by bombers are highly unlikely. Even if the detonator has no qualms with death, it would be a struggle to craft a small nuclear weapon. It would be equally difficult to detonate the bomb to cause maximum devastation.
Vance writes great stories—perhaps he should stick to that career instead.
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