65% of Americans believe Trump will send troops to Iran, poll finds
Sixty-five percent of Americans believe President Donald Trump will “order troops into a large-scale ground war” in Iran, and only 7% support it, the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll released on March 19 found.
The poll, conducted from March 17 to March 19, found that 55% of respondents opposed deploying any ground troops, while 34% said they would support deploying a small number of special forces troops to Iran. Fifty-nine percent of respondents disapproved of the war.
Trump claimed the United States is not sending troops to the Middle East, even as a U.S. Navy warship carrying more than 2,000 Marines has been spotted moving into the region. Reuters, citing unnamed sources, reported that the Trump administration is considering deploying thousands of U.S. troops as part of the next steps in the campaign against Iran.
When asked by reporters in the Oval Office on March 19 whether he intends to put more U.S. troops in the region, the president said no.
“I’m not putting troops anywhere,” Trump explained. “If I were, I certainly wouldn’t tell you. But I’m not putting troops.”
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated that there will be a “ground component” to the war during a news conference on March 19, adding that there are “many possibilities for this ground component, and I take the liberty of not sharing with you all those possibilities.”
Satellite images spotted the USS Tripoli (LHA 7), an America-class amphibious assault ship, and two escort ships traveling southwest across the South China Sea on March 15.
Republicans show support for war in poll, despite MAGA backlash
The Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 77% of Republican respondents supported the war so far. Fourteen percent of Republican respondents approved of a large-scale invasion, while 63% supported using limited special forces.
Trump has faced backlash from MAGA figures, who supported his campaign promise of not engaging in “forever wars,” as well as an administration official who resigned in protest of the war.
Ex-Trump ally and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called the launch of the war “not what we campaigned for” in a March 1 social media post and continued her criticism since.
“The Iran War is rapidly spiraling out of control. It should have never happened,” she said in a March 19 social media post.
Joe Kent, the former head of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, said in a March 17 resignation letter that he could not “in good conscience” support the war and alleged that the Trump administration “started this war due to pressure from Israel.”
In a March 18 interview with Tucker Carlson, Kent reiterated statements from the resignation letter that there was “no intelligence” that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States before the start of hostilities.
“There was no intelligence that said, ‘Hey, on whatever day it was, March 1st, the Iranians are going to launch this big sneak attack, they’re going to do some kind of a 9/11, Pearl Harbor, etc. They’re going to attack one of our bases,'” he said.
Netanyahu denied the accusations that Israel drew the United States into the war, asking: “Does anyone really think that someone can tell President Trump what to do?”
Poll puts Trump’s approval rating at 40%
Trump’s broader standing with the public was largely unchanged in the poll, ticking up one percentage point from a poll taken hours after the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28 to 40%.
The findings align with the New York Times and Real Clear Politics poll aggregations, putting Trump’s approval at 40% and 42.3%, respectively.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll had a sample of 1,545 U.S. adults and a margin of error of about 3%.
Contributing: Reuters
