Support among Americans for the United States’ role in the continuing war with Iran is falling. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll has found that only one American in three supports the war. Most people also complain that President Trump has still not made clear what the United States’ aim in the war is.
The poll, conducted from Friday to Sunday, also found that Trump’s overall public support has risen slightly. His approval rating currently stands at 37 percent, three points higher than last month.
Many consider Trump’s position on the Iran war unclear, however. Sixty-nine percent of Americans polled said Trump has not been able to give a clear explanation of why the United States entered the war and what its aims are. Nearly four in 10 Republicans who support Trump said the same.
The White House spokesperson, Olivia Wells, said Trump does not take decisions by looking at opinion polls. She contended that Trump’s main aim is never to allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.
According to the poll, public support for the war has stayed below 40 percent since the United States and Israel began strikes on Iran in late February. That is far lower than the level of public support at the start of other wars in recent decades.
At the start of the Iraq war in 2003, about 70 percent of Americans were in favour of the war. At the start of the Afghanistan war in 2001, the level of support was about 90 percent.
Pressure before the midterms
Public dissatisfaction over the war is increasing the political pressure on Trump and his Republican Party before the midterm elections due in the United States in November.
Alex Womack, a retired former Marine from the state of Georgia, said: “It is not even clear why we got into a war with Iran. I have no idea.”
Alex said he had become a Republican because he liked the role of the then president George H W Bush in the Gulf war. But his support for Trump has fallen because of the current war. Eighteen US soldiers have been killed in the war so far. Several thousand people have died in Iran and Lebanon.
The war has also had an effect on the US economy. The average price of a gallon of petrol across the country is now a little over four dollars, against about three dollars before the war began.
The Republican political analyst Alex Conant said the poor state of the economy because of the war is making it hard for Republicans to hold voters’ confidence. In the 2024 election campaign Trump promised he would not involve the United States in any long war. He initially gave the impression that the Iran war would not last more than four to five weeks.
Criticism has grown as the war has dragged on, although Trump has repeatedly said there is no comparison between this war and the Vietnam war.
Ryan Anderson, a resident of Georgia, voted for Trump in 2024. He said Trump should give more importance to America’s domestic problems than to wars abroad.
Ryan said: “I think we should look at the problems of people at home first. [Israel] is our ally, fine. But there are many people in this country [the United States] who need help now.”
A total of 1,246 adult Americans took part in the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll. The margin of error in the results was 3 percentage points.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report