Nearly two-thirds of Americans think that President Donald Trump will send U.S. ground troops into the fighting against Iran, a new national poll indicates.
A Reuters/Ipsos survey, conducted Tuesday through Thursday (March 17–19), also indicates that a majority of Americans, 55%, say they don’t support sending ground troops into the operation against Iran.
The poll’s release comes as the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran are about to close out their third week.
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Only 7% of those questioned in the survey said they’d support a large-scale strike by American ground forces, with 34% saying they’d back a more limited-in-scope incursion by U.S. special forces.
Fourteen percent of Republicans surveyed said they’d support a large ground force operation, with 63% saying they’d back inserting special forces into a ground action. Twenty-one percent of Republicans gave a thumbs-down to sending in American ground troops.
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, at a Pentagon briefing earlier this month, declined to rule out the use of U.S. ground forces.
Trump said on Thursday that he was “not putting troops anywhere,” when asked by a reporter about his war plans.
“If I were, I certainly wouldn’t tell you,” the president added.
The military attacks by the U.S. and Israel have resulted in the deaths of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other top officials, and the decimation of the country’s military.
But Iran has retaliated with attacks against Israel and many of its other neighbors in the volatile Middle East.
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Iran has targeted energy facilities with missile and drone attacks in a number of Persian Gulf nations. It has also made the Strait of Hormuz nearly impassable to commercial shipping, bringing to a halt roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply and in turn sending fuel prices skyrocketing in the U.S. and across the globe.
Most national polls conducted since the launch of the strikes at the end of February indicate opposition to the attacks outweighing support, and the Reuters/Ipsos survey is no exception.
According to the poll, which questioned 1,545 adults nationwide, 37% of Americans approved of the fighting with Iran, with 59% disapproving.
But there’s a wide partisan divide, with 77% of Republicans but just 6% of Democrats and 28% of independents supporting the operation.
