Polls Show Americans Skeptical About Attacks on Iran

Most Americans oppose Iran attacks. New polling suggests Americans are unusually skeptical about the US attacks on Iran. Several surveys conducted in the first days after the strike show support ranging from about 27% to roughly 50%, meaning most Americans oppose the action or remain undecided. That level of support is far lower than what the country historically showed at the start of major conflicts. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, 97% of Americans supported entering World War II. Following the September 11th attacks, support for the war in Afghanistan reached 92%. Even the Iraq War, which later became deeply unpopular, began with a 76% approval rating. Political scientists say the difference reflects a more polarized country and a public shaped by two decades of Middle East wars. Without the traditional rally around the flag effect, presidents today may find it far harder to build an early public consensus for military action. Okay, I can kind of buy into the idea that for any president today, it's going to be harder to get buy-in from people of an opposing party. It's short of being attacked on US soil, like what happened with Pearl Harbor. It's gonna be very difficult to have bipartisan support at high levels for any war. But this is different. This is profoundly different. You have virtually no Democrats support, something like 7% of Democrats, and huge swaths of the Republican Party opposing this. But nearly all people who call themselves independents are saying, "This isn't what we voted for. This isn't what we signed up for." President Trump, to his credit, first term when he was running, said, "I'm going to keep America out of wars." And that is one promise, arguably, he kept in his first term. He ran on that same platform in 2024. And now it seems like every other day he's bombing something, causing some military act, going to war. So it has a lot of his own supporters genuinely confused It has a lot of his detractors saying, well, we always thought he was a lunatic and would do crazy stuff. We're surprised he didn't do it earlier. But yeah, this is exactly why we said Donald Trump is unfit to be president, is an utter menace, because he just starts things without any thought. He is clueless. He's non-strategic. He just creates chaos and he expects the rest of the world to clean it up. So that's been the position of Democrats Moderates, centrists, liberals, and progressives for a long time. This seems to be bringing together every single thing that they thought was horrific about Trump. Let's look at some more data. Even at Fox, only 50% of Republicans are supporting these attacks. And I haven't seen how they wrote that poll, but as you know, they tend to fiddle with things to make the president look good. Most recently, Earlier this week, they edited footage to show him not wearing his hat when dead soldiers from the war that Trump started, their bodies were brought home. It's usually a solemn occasion. Presidents don't wear hats. They certainly don't wear baseball caps at an occasion like this. And Fox showed old footage of him not wearing a hat. They claim it was a mistake. But again, even during the Bush era, which seems like A million years ago, but was only a couple of decades ago, 92% supported the Afghanistan War, 76% approved the Iraq War. The Persian Gulf War back under the first George Bush had 82% approval. Now, why is that? In part because President Herbert Walker Bush took the time to go around to the whole world and make the case. Saddam Hussein, took over another sovereign nation. He invaded Kuwait. We want the entire world to go in and stop that in the name of protecting international law and sovereignty. He got approval from other countries all over the world. He got approval from the United States Congress. He sold it to the American people. That's what presidents are supposed to do. Now, I will say that the Libya intervention under Barack Obama's tenure only had a 47% approval. And in that case, it seemed like the American public was pretty smart because as bad as Gaddafi was, and he's nobody's dream leader of a nation, the implosion of that country since then, nobody really thinks that was a good idea. So maybe, not always, but maybe the public is onto something when they weigh in. Not always. I mean, when you look at Afghanistan and Iraq, the public now are saying, "Hey, we were wrong. We shouldn't have done these things." there tends to be in the Middle East all sorts of ramifications that weren't obvious when you started. It's fun and easy to beat your chest and say, "Hey, we're gonna win, we're gonna be greeted as liberators." How many times have we heard that? And 20 years later, kind of still there. Now, one thing, I guess you could say it's a good thing about Trump in this situation, is he's not gonna do anything that causes him political pain for the long term, even if he thought it was best for the world. So that's sort of the one saving grace. It's hard to imagine Donald Trump putting American soldiers' boots on the ground in this region of the world, regardless of whether you think that's a good idea or not. It's just hard to imagine him doing that because he would perceive it as so unpopular. That doesn't mean he can't wreak chaos around the world. It doesn't mean He can't create World War III. So if you have a better sense of why exactly we are in Iran, please let me know. And yes, there are good reasons, but if the reasons change every single day or every single hour, why should Americans trust their political leaders? I understand the regime in Iran has been anti-America for half a century, and it's been ugly. I understand that. I understand they torture their people and have done horrible things. But what's the goal? They've just installed the former cleric leader with his son. What's the actual goal? Because just going in with a bunch of bombs doesn't necessarily change things. And if you loved all the problems with refugees flooding Europe and the rest of the world from Syria imploding, you're gonna love Iran imploding. This could get messy for absolutely everyone.