By Nick Moyle | NJ.com
The war with Iran that President Donald Trump launched on Feb. 28 stands as a remarkable outlier among major American conflicts over the past 90 years.
Decades of polling data going back to World War II show that a larger percentage of Americans were opposed to U.S. military intervention in Iran than any previous foreign conflict.
A New York Times analysis found just 41% of Americans supported launching a war on Iran when the U.S. and Israel bombed Tehran, far lower than support for most other historical conflicts at their outset. (Note: There were no public approval polls available at the start of the Vietnam War.)
Of the 10 major U.S. military conflicts since 1941, only the Iran War and 2011 intervention in Libya were not backed by a majority of Americans.
Around 47% of Americans supported the Obama administration’s strikes on Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in March 2011. The U.S. House later rebuked President Barack Obama for continuing to maintain an American role in NATO’s operations without the express consent of Congress.
The Afghanistan War launched in 2001 and the Iraq War that began in 2003 had the support of 92% and 76% of Americans, respectively, when those operations began. It was only after those conflicts began that public sentiment shifted drastically toward majority opposition.
In contrast, Americans were in near-universal agreement about the U.S. formally entering World War II in December 1941 following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. About 97% of Americans supported military intervention in WWII, according to a Gallup poll conducted that month.
Public support for U.S. military intervention in the first days of international conflicts, per the New York Times:
- World War II (1941): 97%
- Afghanistan War (2001): 92%
- Persian Gulf War (1991): 82%
- Panama Invasion (1989): 80%
- Iraq War (2003): 76%
- Korean War (1950): 75%
- Kosovo War (1999): 58%
- Grenada Invasion (1983): 53%
- Libya Intervention (2011): 47%
- Iran War (2026): 41%