Americans Think Trump Will Send Troops to Iran and They Really Don’t
WASHINGTON, March 19 (Reuters) – About 65% of Americans believe President Donald Trump will order troops into a full-scale ground war in Iran and only 7% support that idea, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll closed on Thursday.
The three-day poll showed Trump’s broader position with the public remaining virtually unchanged at 40%, up 1 percentage point from a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted hours after the United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. The survey, which gathered respondents from 1,545 American adults nationwide, had a margin of error of about 3 percentage points.
The Trump administration has considered deploying thousands of US troops to bolster its operation in the Middle East, Reuters reported on Wednesday. Possible deployments could use air and naval forces to ensure the safe passage of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, or could involve deploying US troops to the coast of Iran. The Trump administration has also discussed options to send ground forces to Iran’s Kharg Island, the center of 90% of Iran’s oil exports, Reuters reported.
Trump said Thursday that he “wouldn’t put troops anywhere” when a reporter asked him about his plans, adding, “If I were, I certainly wouldn’t tell you.”
More than 2,000 people have been killed across the Middle East since the United States and Israel attacked Iran nearly three weeks ago and Iran launched attacks in response. The dead included 13 US service members.
Tit-for-tat strikes at power plants across the Middle East have sent energy prices sharply higher, weighing on stock markets and raising concerns about a resurgence of inflation that has plagued the U.S. economy since the COVID pandemic.
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TRUMP HAD CAMPAIGNED ON THE PROMISE TO AVOID CONFLICT
Trump returned to the White House last year after promising to control inflation and prevent the military from getting caught up in a foreign conflict and has actively campaigned for the Nobel Peace Prize. But it began this year by launching military attacks against Venezuela, capturing its leader in a lightning attack overnight.
The Iranian conflict has already proven more complex, as Tehran has counterattacked across the region, disrupting energy supplies that are critical to the global economy.
Some of the most prominent voices within the president’s MAGA movement have denounced the war, warning that it could hurt Trump’s Republicans in November’s midterm elections, when they will defend their majorities in the US Congress.
Trump Republicans largely support the war as it has unfolded so far: 77% say they approve of US attacks on Iran, compared with 6% of Democrats and 28% of independents.
About 37% of Americans overall approve of the war, according to the poll. Fifty-nine percent disapprove, including about one in five Republicans.
About 63% of Republicans — and 34% of Americans overall — said they would support deploying a small number of special forces troops to Iran. Fifty-five percent of respondents said they opposed deploying ground troops, whether the scale of operations is large or small.
(Reporting by Jason Lange in Washington; editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)