A War No One Wants, Started by a Man No One Trusts

This article by Dan Pfeiffer is reproduced from his Substack newsletter, The Message Box.

We are a few days into Donald Trump’s War with Iran, and a couple of things are already clear.

First, this was a regime change war of choice. No evidence has emerged that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States in any way. Iran was neither on the cusp of developing a nuclear weapon nor a ballistic missile capable of striking the United States. If there were any intelligence suggesting that Iran was planning to use its proxies, like Hezbollah, to strike the U.S. or Americans abroad, the Trump Administration would be screaming it from the mountaintops.

Second, Trump, Hegseth, and the rest of the Administration have no clear endgame. No one has laid out the objectives of the operation, how it serves U.S. interests, or what victory looks like. Trump said on Saturday that freedom for the Iranian people was the goal, but then suggested he may be okay with a Venezuela-style resolution where the regime stays in power if they promise to be nicer to the U.S. Everyone in the Administration seems to be making it up as they go along. While, per usual, our military is executing its mission with bravery and precision, there is no overall strategy or plan for the war’s aftermath.

Finally, while it’s still early and public opinion around war is pretty dynamic, one thing is very clear: this is a war the American people do not want, executed by a leader they do not trust.

A War No One Wants

There have been a bunch of polls done since the first bombs dropped on Friday night/Saturday morning. They all ask the question a little differently, and wording affects the results, but they paint a similar picture. The majority of Americans don’t want war with Iran.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that just one in four Americans approve of the attacks on Iran.

Other polls had better — but still bad — numbers for Trump. A Washington Post poll put support at only 39%, and a CNN poll found 41% approved with 59% disapproving. I’ve seen some internal Democratic polling showing public opinion a little more closely divided, but that’s mostly because there’s a larger pool of undecideds. Approval is still in the low 40s.

The bad news for Trump is that the peak of public approval for wars usually comes in the first days, before the chaos, costs, and consequences become readily apparent.

What’s even more important than the toplines is that opponents of the war are far more passionate than supporters. In both the Washington Post and CNN polls, people who strongly disapprove of the war outnumber those who strongly approve by 2 to 1.

While there are plenty of neocons in Washington who have long fantasized about a war with Iran, even Trump’s own voters are at best ambivalent. Many of them voted for Trump because they believed — quite erroneously — that he was against Forever Wars.

A Weak Leader Pushing an Unpopular War

When George W. Bush pushed America into invading Iraq and bullied Democrats into going along, his approval rating was in the mid-sixties. He was a dominant political figure, trusted far more than any Democrat to protect America from terrorists, coming off a huge midterm win.

Trump is no George W. Bush.

He is an unpopular lame duck who is underwater on every single issue. In the averages, Trump’s approval sits at a meager 41%.

Trump has made basically zero effort to sell this war to the American people, before or after the strikes — and even if he had, it likely wouldn’t work. Voters do not trust Trump on national security. In the Reuters poll, a majority of Americans — and nearly a quarter of Republicans — think Trump is too willing to use military force.

People don’t like the war, they don’t like the person who started it, and they don’t trust him to see it through.

Trump’s Biggest Political Problem

Americans agree that the Iranian regime is bad and dangerous. To the extent that any of them had thought about the Supreme Leader, they are probably glad he is gone. They really don’t want Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

But the American people don’t know why we are at war with Iran, and they certainly don’t think it’s worth the cost in lives or treasure.

Thus far, six U.S. servicemembers have been killed. The war has already cost billions of dollars and will cost tens of billions more.

No one voted to spend billions on a regime change war of choice while we are cutting a trillion dollars from Medicaid, closing rural hospitals, and kicking people off their health care.

The American people already think Trump is too focused abroad and not interested enough in lowering prices here at home. And oil prices are already spiking amid chaos in the Middle East.

This idiotic war makes that problem so, so much worse.