Most Americans expect Trump to send boots on the ground in Iran — but majority oppose it: Poll
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.
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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.
Pence backs Trump’s Iran strikes, says president ‘ignored’ GOP isolationists
EXCLUSIVE — As he praises President Donald Trump for “taking the fight directly” to Iran, former Vice President Mike also argues that the attacks show that the president isn’t listening to the isolationist wing of the Republican Party.
“It’s one of the things I give President Trump great credit for,” Pence said this week in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital.
Pence’s comments come nearly three weeks into the military strikes against Iran, as some loud populist and anti-war voices in the MAGA and America First orbits have heavily criticized the military operation.
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The former vice president, who has long been a proponent of strong American deterrence around the world, highlighted that “around this administration, and to some extent in this administration, there have been some increasingly loud voices calling for America to pull back from our role as leader of the free world. Isolationist voices have taken hold in some quarters of the Republican Party.”
“But fortunately, President Trump turned a deaf ear to those voices last year when he struck Iran, and this year, when he launched Operation Epic Fury,” Pence emphasized. “I think it’s greatly to his credit.”
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Pence argued that it’s “reflective of where the overwhelming majority of Republicans are. Republicans understand that America is the arsenal of democracy, that we’re the leader of the free world, that we have obligations to lead.”
And pointing to his former boss during Trump’s first administration, Pence said, “I’ve told people many times, I’m proud of President Trump for making the decision to launch operation Epic Fury. But I’m not surprised, because the President I serve with is no isolationist.”
The military attacks by the U.S. and Israel have resulted in the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other top officials, and the decimation of the country’s military.
HEAD HERE FOR FOX NEWS LIVE UPDATES ON THE ATTACKS ON IRAN
But Iran has retaliated with attacks against Israel and many of its other neighbors in the volatile Middle East.
Iran has also 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, which has sent fuel prices skyrocketing in the U.S. and across the globe.
But Pence emphasized that he “couldn’t be more proud of President Donald Trump for making the decision to send our troops directly against an enemy that has literally claimed thousands of American lives, including nearly 1,000 service members.”
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The former vice president said Trump has “unleashed the armed forces of the United States to take the fight directly to the source of global terrorism. And I think at the end of the day, the American people understand that this is a fight that we have to win, and it’s going to be important that we finish the threat that Iran has posed to the American people, to our cherished ally, Israel, to nations across the region and across the West, once and for all.”
And Pence said that if he were advising Trump, he would urge the president “to finish the threat that the mullahs and Tehran have posed to the people of this country once and for all.”
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Ukraine peace talks on ‘situational pause’ as Middle East conflict intensifies: Kremlin
Ukraine peace talks are on a “situational pause” as the Middle East conflict intensifies, the Kremlin said Thursday, even as Kyiv signaled negotiations could resume as soon as this weekend.
Following reports in Russian media that the Kremlin had paused talks on Ukraine and that the Middle East conflict could push Kyiv toward compromise, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed the pause.
“This is a situational pause, for obvious reasons,” Peskov told reporters when asked about the report, according to Reuters.
Peskov added that as soon as “our American partners” could refocus on the Ukraine conflict, Moscow hopes the pause will end and new talks can begin, the outlet reported.
UKRAINE TO MEET TRUMP ENVOYS AHEAD OF HIGH-STAKES GENEVA TALKS WITH RUSSIA AS WAR ENTERS FIFTH YEAR
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video posted on X that Kyiv has received signals from the U.S. that it is ready to resume talks aimed at ending the war.
“There has been a pause in the talks, and it is time to resume them,” he said. “We are doing everything to ensure that the negotiations are genuinely substantive.”
Zelenskyy added that a Ukrainian negotiating team is already on its way to the U.S. and is expected to hold meetings Saturday.
RUSSIA, UKRAINE TO DISCUSS TERRITORY AS TRUMP SAYS BOTH SIDES ‘WANT TO MAKE A DEAL’
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump said the “hatred” between Russia and Ukraine was getting in the way of reaching a peace deal.
Speaking at the Shield of the Americas Summit in Doral, Florida, Trump said the “hatred between Putin and his counterpart is so great.”
“It’s so great that, you know, Ukraine, Russia, you’d think there would be a little bit of camaraderie, [but] there’s not. And the hatred is so great. It’s very hard for them to get there. It’s very, very hard to get there. So we’ll see what happens,” Trump said. “But we’ve been close a lot of times and one or the other would back out.”
UKRAINE’S ZELENSKYY: RUSSIA TRYING ‘TO PLAY’ GAME WITH TRUMP, STALL PEACE TALKS
Trump’s comments came after NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in January that Russia was losing between 20,000 and 25,000 troops each month in its war against Ukraine.
The pause in talks comes as Ukraine is increasingly being drawn into the wider Middle East conflict.
With the conflict in Iran now in its third week, Ukraine is providing technology and battlefield-tested tactics to counter Iranian drone attacks.
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U.S. and Gulf partners have requested Ukrainian assistance, with Kyiv signaling it is prepared to share both systems and personnel to help defend against Iranian aerial threats.