The Blowback From an Unpopular Iran War
Nobody wants this.
President Trump stands ready to expand his war against Iran, but the numbers already show how unpopular it is. Six out of ten Americans disapprove of U.S. military action against Iran, according to a new CNN survey. Fifty-six percent of Americans think the president is too willing to use military force, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll fielded over the weekend. If public opinion had a strong bearing on U.S. foreign policy, then this would be a blinking-red indicator that the new war is neither sustainable nor desirable—an all-around destructive campaign.
That the president has failed to make a coherent argument in favor of the Iran strikes, to seek congressional approval, or to make any outreach to the public may well end up backfiring.
This illegal war will undoubtedly have major unintended consequences that will be felt for decades in Iran, the Middle East, and across the world. But—combined with the reckless attack on the Venezuelan government, new threats against Cuba, and the negatives caused by tariffs—Trump’s war could bring the rarified world of foreign policy–making into the realm of electoral politics.
Elites of both parties have tried to take American public opinion out of the equation of statecraft and military affairs since World War II. Trump, by contrast, capitalized on the popularity of ending forever wars in his 2024 presidential campaign. He seemed to recognize that such foreign-policy issues do resonate with voters. He ran as an anti-war candidate, at times to the left of Kamala Harris on issues such as Gaza. Now, however, his campaign-trail nodding to the preferences of his base has become wholly inconsistent with his actual policies.
The public already realizes that foreign policy cannot be cordoned off from electoral politics, argues Curt Mills, executive director of The American Conservative and one of the most astute observers of MAGA. “It is a truism that voters don’t vote on foreign policy. I could not disagree more,” he told me last month on the podcast I host, None Of The Above. “In fact, I think the 2028 [Republican] primary, if it is heavily contested, will be over Israel.” Not just the inability to end Israel’s war in Gaza despite squandered cease-fire attempts, but U.S. presidents’ willingness to abet and accompany Israel in pursuing militaristic adventurism across the Middle East.
The opposition party has broadly acknowledged the salience of this argument. “The Democrats are messaging, not on Israel specifically, that Trump is ignoring the economy for foreign policy,” Mills explained. And “the most dangerous, potentially presidency-sundering thing is Iran. And everybody knows that that is highly related to Israel.” Now that Israel and the U.S. have launched a war of choice against Iran, the Republican electorate is likely to continue to fracture over Israel.
To be sure, the Trump administration has framed its messaging on Iran as serving defensive aims. “Our objective is clear: to defend the American people, protect our forces and partners, and ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in a guidance memo sent to the White House and diplomatic posts on February 28, which was viewed by the Prospect. (The unclassified document, which extensively cites the president’s Truth Social posts, is “not to be used for press or social media engagement.”)
Congress, meanwhile, has failed to exercise its coequal policymaking role, something the public very much wants it to do. Nearly three-quarters of Americans oppose the president’s use of military force without Congress’s approval, with nearly all Democrats opposed (94 percent) and Republicans split (50 percent opposed), according to a survey my organization fielded in the fall. The lane is wide open for Congress to do something, even if the American bombs are already falling. Despite that, the House vote scheduled for later this week (possibly as early as today) to halt offensive operations until and unless they’re authorized by Congress under the War Powers Act isn’t likely to pass, given Republican reluctance to cross Trump—but the political space is there for Republicans to defy Trump if they can stand his outbursts.
It’s not clear how the free fall of public opinion will end up manifesting itself in resistance to the Iran war or other seemingly impending wars. There haven’t yet been mass protests in American cities against this new war of aggression. The political impact of Trump’s previous militaristic policies has been limited.
The boomerang of Iran, however, with the potential of more American service members being killed, oil prices skyrocketing, and plenty of unknown unknowns, could be that Americans end up caring a lot about foreign policy.
The post The Blowback From an Unpopular Iran War appeared first on The American Prospect.