The joint U.S.-Israeli military strike is largely opposed by Americans, as many see rising oil prices and President Donald Trump’s rhetoric about American casualties. These views contrast sharply with support for other major military operations over the past 25 years.
Several polls conducted over the past week have shown that 43% to 59% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s ordering a military strike against Iran, which his administration has called an “act of epic fury.” The results show a divergence of views on the war with Iran between Americans and Trump.
“What will replace the Iranian government? Will we have people on the ground?” Sriram Shanmugam, an 18-year-old Republican, told the Guardian after the death of the supreme leader. “Is there any guarantee that this won’t be our generation’s Afghanistan or Iraq?”
Trump and the White House said the operation was an effort to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and to liberate the Iranian people from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the February 28 attack. Trump said if the Iranians cannot get the president’s approval, the country’s new leader won’t be in office for long.
middle east war
This was in stark contrast to Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth’s rhetoric about the war. On March 2, he told reporters that Operation Epic Fury did not involve democracy-building goals. At the same briefing, he did not rule out deploying troops to Iran.
But public sentiment does not support further military action as the Trump administration appears to have changed the objectives of the Iran war. Some of the condemnation came after a February 28 attack by the United States and Israel that killed 175 civilians.
“This is not America’s war, and this war is not being waged on behalf of America’s national security goals to make America safer or wealthier,” Tucker Carlson said on a March 3 podcast.
“Americans don’t want another endless war, and they certainly don’t want to be forced into one,” Rep. Dave Min, D-Calif., wrote on X Monday. “This is not what the American people voted for.”
Polls by Marist/PBS/NPR, CNN, Reuters/Ipsos, The Washington Post, NBC News and Fox News show an average of 32% of Americans support a strike. At least 1,000 U.S. adults responded to each survey.
The Cato Institute’s June 2025 assessment of U.S. sentiment toward war in the Middle East showed that most people do not want another conflict but want leaders to reach a compromise.
“Americans are seeking peaceful solutions but are also watching closely, hoping that global leaders can prevent the region from sliding into broader war,” the report said.
Americans’ unpopular war
The lack of support among the American public contrasts with historically positive views of military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Gulf Wars.
A Pew Research Center survey of Americans’ support for the war in Iraq, conducted four months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, showed 73% of adults favored the use of force in the Middle Eastern country. The research firm said in its 2023 review that Americans remain shocked by the attacks and support the use of force to oust Saddam Hussein from Iraq, who was later executed.
The George W. Bush administration cited Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction as justification for U.S. intervention in Iraq. In October 2002, this led to 65% of the public believing that Hussein was on the verge of possessing nuclear weapons. Additionally, 66% of Americans believe the leader helped terrorists during the attacks, although the White House provided no evidence.
In 2007, as the war continued and Bush sought to send more troops to Iraq, approval fell sharply to 31 percent.
“If anything, the plan has triggered an increase in partisan polarization in the debate about how to act in Iraq,” the center said in 2007.
The war in Afghanistan, which became the longest war in U.S. history, initially enjoyed broad public support, with Gallup polls showing that 90% of Americans supported military action in the country. The poll was conducted from September to November 2001.
The Council on Foreign Relations, a left-leaning think tank, said in a 2021 commentary that most Americans believe this is a war not worth fighting. The war, known as Operation Enduring Freedom, achieved its primary goal of killing al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden in 2011.
“The United States has spent more than $2.3 trillion seeking to reshape Afghanistan,” CFR wrote. “That blood and treasure cannot be forgotten or regained. On this anniversary, it is worth remembering that strong public support at the beginning of a war does not guarantee public support at its end.”
Shifting public opinion on the Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a war that divided the country. A 1965 Gallup poll showed that 61% of Americans did not believe it was a mistake for the United States to send troops to the country, while 24% said it was a mistake and 15% were unsure.
The New York Times reported in 1971, 15 years after the war began, that 61 percent of Americans surveyed believed the conflict was a mistake for the United States. The publication interviewed 1,502 people for the poll.
The message was received by then-President Jimmy Carter, who in 1977 issued a blanket pardon to anyone who had drafted and evaded military service during the war, according to Justice Department archives.
In December 2024, Carter told PBS: “In a way, I think it’s important to end the ongoing debate about the Vietnam War. Although I served in the Army for 11 years, my father fought in World War I and my oldest son fought in Vietnam. I think the best thing to do is to pardon them and make the Vietnam War a thing of the past.”
The war began with the support of a majority of Americans, but took a turn with the military operations of the Tet Offensive in 1968, which killed about 1,000 American soldiers. The operation led newscasters to oppose stationing troops in the Asian country and ending the war, according to the Department of Defense POW/Civil War Audit Bureau.
