Vice President JD Vance and his allies are casting his advocacy for President Donald Trump’s Iran deal as a contrast with the Republican Party’s neoconservative establishment, betting that owning the agreement dividing his own party will help him with the MAGA base.

The deal, of which Vance is increasing the public face, is encountering a wall of opposition from skeptical conservatives who have blasted it as a loss for the United States — and a potential handicap for Vance’s political future. “The deal Trump signed not only allows the regime to survive, it helps Iran get back on its feet,” conservative commentator Marc Thiessen argued, coining the agreement the “Vance peace deal.”

But Vance countered in an interview with podcaster Megyn Kelly that critics of the deal are “proposing an endless conflict.” What’s more, his allies see a political upside in his role in the agreement. They argue that Americans, who are already skeptical of US intervention overseas and unnerved by the prospect of another prolonged war, want an end to the conflict that Trump started nearly four months ago.

“Ironically, the hawks attacking the Vice President for this peace deal have unwittingly helped solve the biggest potential political problem that he was facing should he run in 2028 — the unpopularity of this war,” said one Republican who is supportive of the Trump administration’s efforts to end the conflict. “The more unpopular neocons like Jonah Goldberg, John Bolton and Marc Thiessen make him the face of ending the war, the more it signals to the MAGA base that Vance is their guy. And for that, I’m sure that Vice President Vance is very thankful to his biggest critics.”

One Vance ally went so far as to call his advocacy for the deal a “political no-brainer.”

“First, it’s the right thing to do, because it’s the right policy to end the war for the American people, but number two, it’s a political no-brainer to be on the side of peace, especially when you’ve got a war that is only popular in some corners of X and in the halls of K Street,” the Vance ally said.