What Americans Want from the Iran War Isn’t What They Expect to Get

By Noah Rothman

Monday, March 23, 2026

 

A useful CBS News/YouGov survey released over the weekend reveals a stark divide in American public opinion regarding the ongoing war against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

 

Overall, 57 percent of the adults surveyed told pollsters the war is going either “very” or “somewhat badly.” Just 43 percent disagree. Who can blame them? All but the most dedicated news consumers are so regularly bombarded by national media’s trepidation over the course the conflict has taken that their pessimism could be mistaken for prudence.

 

But the press doesn’t deserve all the blame for the public’s assessment. Americans, it seems, overwhelmingly support a range of objectives that could result from this conflict. They just don’t trust the president to secure them at all, much less at an acceptable cost.

 

Two-thirds of all respondents would like this war to end with the elimination of the Iranian threat to its regional neighbors and the world. Another 73 percent want to see the Iranian nuclear program “permanently” disabled. Eight in ten Americans want to make sure “Iran’s people are safe and free” at the conclusion of hostilities, which would likely only follow the implosion of the Islamist regime in Tehran. That’s perhaps why a majority of respondents (53 percent) believe it would be unacceptable to end the war with the regime still in power.

 

That’s what Americans want. What they expect they’ll get, however, is another matter.

 

About nine in ten Americans believe they’ll have to absorb higher gasoline prices for the time being. Another 58 percent anticipate that higher gas prices will persist indefinitely. Sixty percent believe the economy will suffer because of this war. Forty-four percent say it will not recover anytime soon. A majority said they believe the president will have to deploy U.S. ground troops to Iranian soil to accomplish his objectives. And Americans are not convinced that the war will make the country any safer, both in the near term (49 percent) and in the long run (42 percent).

 

National media’s relentless focus on American tactical and strategic setbacks in this war surely contributes to the public’s negativity, but this poll’s respondents also do not believe the president has addressed their misgivings. The number of respondents who told pollsters that the Trump administration has not “clearly explained” its war aims grew from 62 percent at the outset of hostilities to 68 percent today. As such, overall approval of this conflict declined from 44 percent on March 3 to just 40 percent today.

 

As I’ve written previously, the president did not trust the public enough at the beginning of this conflict to level with them about what it would entail, what would be expected of them, and why their sacrifice was a desirable contribution to a vital national project. Why shouldn’t they return the favor? Just one-third of poll respondents are willing to shoulder higher gas costs today, but they might be if that contributed to a future without the Islamic Republic in it. Most voters (58 percent) do not trust the president’s judgment in a crisis, and his inconstancy and undisciplined communications strategy have given them no reason to revise that assessment.

 

The good news for Trump here is that this poll suggests that he inherited a solid foundation on which to build support for the U.S.-Israeli campaign. To do that, he will have to overcome the public’s misgivings about his temperament as well as the commitments American soldiers and civilians alike will be expected to make to get there. Maybe that’s easier said than done, but we won’t know until the president makes an earnest and sustained attempt to persuade Americans toward his way of thinking about this war.