Initial polls show that the U.S.-Israeli strikes in Iran that killed the Ayatollah Khamenei are not very popular amongst the American public. The idea of strikes was unpopular even before Saturday’s attacks, and last June’s bombing of nuclear sites was unpopular as well. In all of these polls, Republicans are largely on President Trump’s side and Democrats mostly oppose Trump’s actions, as usual for our polarized era.
With Iran, though, there’s something deeper than partisanship happening. You won’t necessarily see it in the polls, but you will see it all over social media and news feeds: The idea—now reality—of the U.S. at war in the Middle East immediately conjures the specters of Iraq and Afghanistan, the latter of which we left only four and a half years ago. There are dozens of reasons why the current fight with Iran is completely different, but the knee-jerk comparison is a trauma reaction for a lot of Americans.
From October of 2001 to August of 2021, we had troops fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq, or both. An entire generation—millennials—entered adulthood in wartime. Many signed up to serve and deployed multiple times in both regions. They came back traumatized and scarred from fighting terrorists and militias that don’t exactly care about rules of engagement. A classmate told me they couldn’t drive when they came back because any debris or litter on the road looked like an IED that might have killed or maimed their whole unit overseas.
And then we entered our upper 20s and our 30s still in wartime. Those of us who experienced the wars as young adults, who saw our friends and classmates serve in horrific conditions, and who saw what it did to them and how little it seemed to accomplish, are now approaching or in middle age. We’re the ones driving the conversations now. And war with Iran immediately invokes the weight of 20 prior years of war.
That said, the engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan were very popular when they started. That matters. When public opinion supports a war, there is less incentive for leaders to worry about it taking too long. It took several years for opinion to really turn against the wars.
Those conflicts started at a unique moment of unity in this country. The 9/11 attacks were unfathomable, but in the aftermath, something special happened. Polarization stood still for a moment. President George W. Bush had an approval rating in the upper 80s. Everyone flew American flags. We were all on the same team.
Afghanistan was retaliation for 9/11, and was therefore extremely popular. Americans’ desire to avenge the attacks translated to more than 90 percent support for military action. More than 6 in 10 supported a long-term war. Eighteen months later when we went into Iraq, sentiment was still fairly unified and supportive of going after foreign enemies—two-thirds of voters supported military intervention to take out Saddam Hussein, including a majority of Democrats.
It also helped that the international order supported both wars in the beginning. The world was fairly easily convinced—incorrectly, as it turned out—that Iraq was making nuclear weapons. That fear was accompanied by humanitarian concerns and Iraq's alleged terrorist ties.
Both wars ultimately became unpopular and untenable. The eventual wind-down in Afghanistan was chaotic and unpopular, and in mid-2021 more than 6 in 10 Americans said it hadn’t even been worth fighting. In 2019, 62 percent of Americans and 59 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans said the Iraq war had not been worth fighting. There were two big wins: taking Saddam Hussein out of power and killing Osama bin Laden. But for most, there was little point in continuing the wars after those wins.
Americans have become increasingly isolationist in the last 15 years. Donald Trump campaigned on that isolationism, only to turn toward military action and regime change once he returned to office. That the administration is working closely with Israel also colors the reaction to attacking Iran. The American public has grown substantially less favorable toward Israel over the last few years.
We’ve been involved in periodic conflicts with Iran since the late Ayatollah Khomeini took over in 1979, particularly in trying to keep the ultra-religious regime that chants “death to America” from getting nuclear weapons. But without a huge provocation from Iran, a preemptive strike was always going to be unpopular. Combine that with the recent history of U.S. wars in the region, and you see that public reactions go far deeper than partisanship.
Contributing editor Natalie Jackson is a vice president at GQR Research.
