Trump Outrages: Rogue Iran War Edition
By Mort Kondracke
The historical record shows that Americans almost always give strong percentage approval (high 70s to 90s) when US forces first go into combat. This dates back to the Korean War. Support historically often collapses the longer the war goes on, US casualties mount, and prospects for victory disappear.
Trump had no such support for starting his air war against Iran. Five respected polls show that Americans opposed the war (or “excursion” as Trump now calls it) by 61% to 39%. That’s partly because Trump keeps giving confusing estimates of when the war might end— “very soon, but not this week” one day and “we have to finish the job” another day. On March 11, he said “we have won the war” thirteen times even though Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said it was the “most intense day” of the war so far.
Moreover, he and other officials have given multiple, sometimes conflicting reasons for going to war. Trump claimed Iran was “weeks” away from having a nuclear weapon. He also cited “47 years of Iranian aggression.”
Defense and intelligence officials emphasized the need to eliminate Iran’s missile strength. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had two different rationales in 24 hours: that Israel was going to attack and Iran could be expected to strike American targets so the US should strike first. Then he dropped the Israel rationale and said the US should strike first rather than allowing Iran to do so.
https://www.postalley.org/2026/03/14/trump-outrages-rogue-iran-war-edition/