Twenty-one hours of negotiations in Islamabad produced nothing. Vice President Vance, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner sat across from senior Iranian officials — including the speaker of the Iranian Parliament — and walked away without an agreement. The sticking point, as Vance framed it, was Iran’s unwillingness to make a “fundamental commitment” not to develop a nuclear weapon or the means to quickly build one. That’s a reasonable bar to set. It’s also one Iran was always unlikely to clear under these conditions.

Vice President JD Vance was in Budapest this week, visiting Viktor Orbán’s government and fielding questions about the Iran situation from abroad.

On the drone incident in Iranian airspace — which Tehran cited as a ceasefire violation — Vance offered: “Ceasefires are always messy.”

He also reaffirmed the US position that Iran should not be allowed to enrich uranium, and clarified that any ceasefire covering Lebanon was not part of the agreement. Which is a message that directly contradicts what Iran’s leadership has been saying publicly.