How Iran could still go to war with Trump — but not America

An Iranian official suggested Trump's international properties could be targets for retaliation. What if it followed through now?

President Trump.
(Image credit: Illustrated | NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images, javarman3/iStock)

President Trump's appetite for conflict with Iran is not widely shared by the American people. Gallup's most recent poll on the subject finds eight in 10 want U.S.-Iran relations to rely on diplomatic and economic tools, with just 18 percent backing military action. A pair of September surveys by the University of Maryland returned nearly identical results — and, perhaps most remarkably, all three show strong anti-war majorities among both Democrats and Republicans. Whatever bellicose support Trump has found from Fox News hosts and hawkish Republican senators since assassinating Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, he will not find the same among most voters, his own base included.

Trump's comments Wednesday — "Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned" — suggest he may be realizing the public's opposition to war. Tehran already knew. And to let us know they know, top Iranian presidential adviser Hesameddin Ashena issued two tweets Sunday.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.