Why Donald Trump is losing the war at home

By David Smith for The Conversation

Sydney: No US president in living memory has gone to war with less public support than Donald Trump has for the war in Iran.

Even Barack Obama’s much-maligned Libyan intervention began with 60% of Americans in support in 2011. There is no poll that shows a majority of Americans supporting the Iran war, and multiple polls showing clear majorities against it. And wars usually lose public support as they go on.

Trump did not make a public case for the war before it began, because he preferred quick, surprising strikes preceded by theatrical suspense. He presented the vast military buildup in the Persian Gulf as a high-pressure negotiating tactic in the short-lived bargaining sessions over Iran’s nuclear enrichment.

Trump was undoubtedly emboldened by the tactical success of his removal of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, though that too was not very popular with Americans.

Wars are not necessarily better when the US government invests a huge effort in justifying them. The justification for the disastrous Iraq War, after all, was based on misperceptions, distortions and falsehoods. But by completely disregarding US public opinion before the war, Trump now finds himself in all kinds of trouble as he tries to fight it.

Americans don’t like seeing themselves as aggressors

Political scientist Bruce Jentleson argued that public support for war in the United States depends not just on how the war is going, but on the public’s understanding of the war’s aims. The US public is much more likely to support wars aimed at imposing restraints on aggressive powers than wars aimed at bringing political change to other countries.

That theory explains why the Bush administration made such an effort to claim Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was linked to the September 11 terrorist attacks, even though “regime change” was the aim of the Iraq war.

Regime change is also, quite clearly, the aim of the Iran war. Trump has been talking about it for months, and is still talking about it.

It was only after the bombs started falling on Iran that Trump and his administration began to make the case that Iran was an “imminent threat” to the US. It wasn’t very convincing.

After all, Trump had been boasting until recently that he had “completely obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program the year before. In a video released shortly after the attacks, Trump complained about the 1979 Tehran hostage crisis, the 1983 Hezbollah attack on US marines in Beirut, and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, which he said Iran was “probably involved in”.

It was left to Secretary of State Marco Rubio to make the convoluted argument that the US was acting in preemptive self-defence, because it knew Israel was going to strike Iran, and that Iran would retaliate against Americans in the Middle East.

That did not play well in a country increasingly wary of Israel. A Gallup poll released just before the war began showed that, for the first time this century, more Americans said their sympathies were with Palestinians than Israelis. Recently, the biggest drop in support for Israel has been among political Independents, whose views have shifted significantly during the Gaza War.

Tucker Carlson, the loudest critic of the Iran war on the right, immediately labelled it “Israel’s war”. Joe Rogan, an influential figure among Trump’s 2024 support base of disillusioned young men, said they felt “betrayed” by the war.

Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has tried to sell the war to Americans by gloating about the death, destruction and fear being inflicted on Iran. Even as investigations show the US military was responsible for the bombing of a school that killed more than a hundred children, he dismisses rules of military engagement as “stupid”. The most recent Quinnipiac Poll showed Hegseth’s approval rating at 37%.

Americans are unprepared for sacrifice

Despite high-profile opponents like Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene, Trump still has most of the MAGA base with him for now. They were never really opposed to foreign wars. What they hated was losing foreign wars, and Trump is promising them swift victory in Iran.

But Trump has not prepared them or anyone else, including his own cabinet, for the costs this war will incur. Especially the disruption to global oil markets, which the International Energy Agency is calling the largest in history, and which will elevate the cost of everything from travel to food.

Trump’s rhetoric about the price of war has hardly been Churchillian. One night he posted on social media that a short term increase in oil prices is “a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace. ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!” But the next day he was forced to calm markets by claiming the war was nearly over.

The Iranian regime, whose main goal is survival, is well aware of the political and economic vulnerabilities of the US and its Middle Eastern allies, and these appear to be what it is targeting.

At the beginning of the war, Iran’s seemingly scattered attacks on infrastructure, embassies and hotels in Gulf states were a source of mirth for some American commentators. But these were eventually enough to shut down large swathes of energy production and shipping, and inflict far more pain than Trump or his supporters were expecting.

Trump was already facing the same domestic problem that Joe Biden faced. It doesn’t matter how much you tell Americans about positive GDP, stock market and employment numbers; if they are struggling with the cost of living, their view of both the economy and the President will be bleak.

Trump’s glib dismissals of the price of oil are sounding a lot like his airy reassurances at the beginning of the pandemic.

Few Republicans in Congress have been prepared to stand up to Trump over the war. But as midterm elections approach, many of them will be silently praying he finds an excuse to end it as soon as possible.

(David Smith is an Associate Professor in American Politics and Foreign Policy, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney)