How Americans Feel About the War With Iran, One Month In

About one month since the U.S. launched a war with Iran that shows little sign of abating as the two nations have proposed divergent peace plans, a majority of Americans remain critical of the military campaign, according to recent polls.

Early polling days after the U.S. and Israel jointly struck Iran on Feb. 28 showed disapproval among most Americans, amid a lack of a clear rationale and uncertainty over how long the conflict would draw out. Weeks in, recent polls suggest that disapproval has sustained: a Pew Research Center survey released Wednesday showed that 61% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the conflict, and a poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found six in 10 American adults say that the U.S.’s military action on Iran has “gone too far.”

A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday also found that 42% of registered U.S. voters believe the war makes the world less safe. Even a survey by Fox News found 58% of American voters oppose the war.

On Tuesday, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 61% of respondents disapproved of the U.S.’s strikes against Iran. Similarly, 61% disapproved of Donald Trump’s performance as President.

The war, which the Trump Administration estimated would take some six weeks at most, has already killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was succeeded by his son. It’s also upended the global economy and cost the U.S. billions of dollars. 

With the mounting costs continuing to eat into Americans’ pockets and threatening Trump’s campaign message of affordability, even some Republicans have grown concerned that the war may hurt the party in the November midterms, where they are defending a razor-thin majority in Congress.

But the Administration continues to defend the fighting. “Twenty-five days in, the greatest military the world has ever known is ahead of schedule and performing exceptionally,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a Wednesday press briefing.

Partisan divide

Latest polls show that the partisan divide in public sentiment on the Iran war persists. 

The Pew Research poll found that while 90% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents disapprove of Trump’s handling of the Iran conflict, 69% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents approve. In the AP-NORC poll, 52% of Republicans said U.S. military action in Iran has been about right, and another 20% said it hasn’t gone far enough, compared to 90% of Democrats who said that it’s gone too far.

The Quinnipiac survey found 79% of Republicans think the war with Iran will make the world safer, while 74% of Democrats think it will make the world less safe. And the Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 75% of Republicans approve of the U.S. military strikes on Iran, while 93% of Democrats disapprove.

In the Fox News survey, MAGA appears to drive the partisan divide: 77% of Republican respondents supported the U.S.’s ongoing military action in Iran, with 90% of MAGA respondents and 52% of non-MAGA respondents backing it.

Republican politicians have largely backed the U.S.’s war with Iran, but a handful of key GOP lawmakers have grown increasingly uneasy about the Administration’s apparent lack of transparency about how the war is being handled or funded.

Politico reported that House Armed Services Committee chair Rep. Mike Rogers (R, Ala.) complained about how lawmakers are “not getting enough answers” to questions about the war after a closed-door briefing with Defense Department officials on the war on Wednesday, and Rep. Nancy Mace (R, S.C.) expressed on social media her concerns about U.S. operations transforming into boots on the ground: “Let me repeat: I will not support troops on the ground in Iran, even more so after this briefing.”