More than a month into the U.S.-Israeli air campaign against Iran that has upended the global economy and sent fuel prices soaring, a new poll from CNN and SSRS finds just one third of Americans approve of the ongoing military action. <\/p>\n
The 34 percent of respondents who said they approved at least somewhat of President Donald Trump\u2019s war represents a seven-point decline from a similar poll taken just after the start of the bombing campaign on Feb. 28. <\/p>\n
At the same time, a super-majority of 66 percent of Americans disapprove of the war, with 43 percent of those reporting that they strongly disapprove. <\/p>\n
Worse yet for the president: more than three-quarters of respondents \u2014 a whopping 77 percent \u2014 said they would oppose the Pentagon\u2019s request for $200 billion to fund further military action against Iran, while 68 percent said they were opposed to the idea of sending ground troops into Iran. <\/p>\n
And 67 percent said they don\u2019t believe Trump has a clear plan for handling the situation in Iran.<\/p>\n
A supermajority of Americans disapprove of Trump\u2019s war on Iran, a new CNN poll shows (AFP via Getty Images)The negative polling result for Trump\u2019s latest military action comes just hours before he is set to deliver an address to the nation at which he is understood to be planning to essentially declare victory while savaging members of NATO for not heeding his post-facto demand for assistance in combatting Iranian efforts to bottle up maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, the key waterway through which about a fifth of the world\u2019s energy supply must pass before heading to global markets.<\/p>\n
Since Trump announced the start of the unprovoked war in a social media video posted in the wee hours of a Saturday morning four weeks ago, his approval rating has fallen to levels that are lower than what was recorded during the shambolic final days of his first term after he fomented a riot at the U.S. Capitol in a last-ditch attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.<\/p>\n
The CNN poll found his overall approval rating at 35 percent, with just 36 percent approving of his conduct of foreign policy as president.<\/p>\n
Just 33 percent of Americans said they approve of his handling of the Iran war, the same number who said they approve of his performance as commander-in-chief of the U.S. armed forces.<\/p>\n
Since the start of the bombing campaign at the end of February, Trump and his aides have offered shifting justifications for the war effort and have continued to insist on pushing forward even as Iran\u2019s largely successful blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has caused gasoline prices in the U.S. to rise by more than a dollar per gallon on average across the country.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Wednesday, Trump took to social media to claim he\u2019d rejected a new request for a ceasefire from Iran\u2019s president and, in the same breath, threaten to bomb the country \u201cback to the Stone Ages\u201d if Tehran does not allow ships to resume passing freely through the strait.<\/p>\n
Writing on Truth Social, Trump said \u201cIran\u2019s New Regime President\u201d \u2014 who he described as \u201cmuch less Radicalized and far more intelligent than his predecessors\u201d \u2014 had asked for a \u201cceasefire\u201d from the U.S. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Separately, he lashed out at America\u2019s NATO allies in a pair of interviews in which he once again floated the idea of pulling the U.S. out of the 32- member bloc.<\/p>\n
According to a source familiar with his thinking, Trump\u2019s pique at NATO stems from the way global financial markets have been roiled by the month-old air war in large part due to Iran\u2019s effective control over the Strait of Hormuz. <\/p>\n
Although Trump promised that American naval vessels would escort ships through the key waterway early on in the conflict, he never delivered on that promise and has instead repeatedly badgered America\u2019s European allies to contribute naval support for an operation to reopen the strait to maritime traffic.<\/p>\n
While multiple American allies, including the U.K. and France, have expressed interest in a multinational force to guarantee freedom of navigation, European leaders \u2014 including British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer \u2014 have stressed that no such operations could begin until after the U.S. and Israel end their war.<\/p>\n
In response, Trump has repeatedly blasted NATO members for not joining in the war effort even though he made no attempt to rally international support before commencing the airstrikes. <\/p>\n
He has attacked the 32-member alliance as a \u201cpaper tiger\u201d and claimed the failure of NATO members to obey his demands shows the alliance to be one-sided even though the only time it has invoked the North Atlantic Treaty\u2019s mutual defense provision was to defend the United States after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Trump told The Telegraph that taking the US out of the alliance was now \u201cbeyond reconsideration\u201d. <\/p>\n
He also said he\u2019d use his remarks on Wednesday evening to express \u201cdisgust\u201d with the alliance and said he was \u201cabsolutely\u201d considering whether to withdraw from NATO despite clear U.S. law banning the president from doing so without approval from Congress. <\/p>\n
In separate comments to Reuters, he claimed the US has \u201csome more targets left\u201d before the war can end and claimed Iran \u201cwon’t have a nuclear weapon because they are incapable of that now.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then I’ll leave, and I’ll take everybody with me, and if we have to we’ll come back to do spot hits,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
He added that he \u201cdoes not care about nuclear material\u201d and that the US would be out of Iran \u201cpretty quickly\u201d signaling that the country would be wrapping up its military operations in the region soon, contrary to reports of a ground invasion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
More than a month into the U.S.-Israeli air campaign against Iran that has upended the global economy and sent fuel prices soaring, a new poll from CNN and SSRS finds just one third of Americans approve of the ongoing military action. The 34 percent of respondents who said they approved at least somewhat of President […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n