President Donald Trump joined Israel in yet another war of choice in the Middle East last week. Polls conducted in the United States immediately after the start of the Iran war show that the majority of Americans do not support it.  A YouGov snap poll fielded Saturday — the day of the strikes — found 34% of Americans approve of the U.S. attacks on Iran, with 44% disapproving and 22% unsure. A CNN poll done soon after found that 59% of Americans disapprove of the war. 

59% of Americans Disapprove of the Iran War. Source: CNN

It appears that President Trump has caved in to pressure from the Israelis to go to war against Iran, a fact confirmed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. In answer to a question, Rubio essentially admitted that Israel forced the US into war with Iran. 'There absolutely was an imminent threat,' Rubio said. 'And the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked (by Israel), and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us, and we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded.' 

Majority of Americans Disapprove of Iran War. Source: YouGov

Support for prior US wars in the Middle East such as the Iraq war started in the low-mid 70% range in the beginning. Trump is starting at half of that in his attack on Iran — lower than where the average American was in 2013. It's clear that Americans' support for wars in the Middle East has rapidly declined. 

President Trump's MAGA base is particularly incensed by what they see as abandonment of the "America First" promise he made during his presidential campaign in 2024. Many of them now accuse him of pursuing "Israel First" policies at the expense of ordinary Americans.  

"Absolutely disgusting and evil," Tucker Carlson said about the joint US-Israel attack in an interview with ABC News. "This is going to shuffle the deck in a profound way."

"The Trump admin actually asked in a poll how many casualties voters were willing to accept in a war with Iran??? How about ZERO you bunch of sick (expletive) liars. We voted for America First and ZERO wars," said former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, as she blasted the administration on US social media company X.

"We said ‘No More Foreign Wars, No More Regime Change!’ … Trump, (Vice President JD) Vance, basically the entire admin campaigned on it and promised to put America FIRST and Make America Great Again (MAGA)," she added.

Other MAGA figures joined the criticism, with podcaster Tim Pool and influencers Keith and Kevin Hodge writing, "President Trump has completely LIED to his voters, backstabbed our country and has disgraced his legacy beyond repair," reported TRT World. 

One of the most effects of this war will most likely be on energy prices which have begun to spike already. Energy prices affect all other prices, fueling broader inflation. Rising prices will hurt the entire economy but their negative impact will particularly be felt by middle class households. 

The average price for a gallon of regular gas is just shy of $3 right now, according to AAA, as reported by Marketplace. Tom Kloza, chief analyst at Gulf Oil, told Marketplace that “we’re gonna go in relatively short order to about $3.10 to $3.25,” he said. But if the conflict with Iran continues deeper into March and April, Kloza said prices might peak as high as $3.50 a gallon.

AIPAC, the powerful Israel lobby, is starting to lose its political power and influence in the United States. Several Congressional Democrats have recently refused campaign contributions from AIPAC, the powerful Israel lobby, according to media reports. “Democrats who once counted AIPAC among their top donors have in recent weeks refused to take the group’s donations”, says a New York Times story titled  "Democrats Pull Away From AIPAC, Reflecting a Broader Shift".  “AIPAC is becoming an increasingly toxic brand for some Democrats on Capitol Hill," it says.  It cites the example of Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., the minority leader, who has long been endorsed by the hardline AIPAC, has now chosen to accept the support of J Street, the competing Israel lobby that advocates a two-state solution. 

Results of Recent Poll of American Jews. Source: Washington Post

A recent poll conducted by the Washington Post has found that  "most (American) Jews (61%) say Israel is committing war crimes — and 39% say genocide — while often distinguishing between the country and its leadership".  American Jews are particularly unhappy with the current right-wing government of Israel.  68% give negative marks to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership of Israel, with 48% it “poor” — a 20-percentage-point jump from a Pew Research Center poll five years ago. 

Mamdani's resounding win in New York City, a city that has the world's second largest Jewish population after Tel Aviv, is particularly significant. It sends a clear message to American politicians, particularly Democrats, that they don't have to bow to hardline AIPAC to win elections. 

Although the rebellion against AIPAC is mainly among Democrats, there's also growing anger among Trump's "America First" base who see the Trump Administration's policies as "Israel First". Prominent among Republican critics of Trump's pro-Israel policies are Republican Representatives Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene, talk show host Tucker Carlsen and former Trump advisor Steve Bannon. 

Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of Anti-Defamation League, has blamed the shift in the US public opinion against Israel on popular social app TikTok.  “We really have a TikTok problem, a Gen Z problem,” he said in a leaked audio recording. “The same brains that gave us Taglit, the same brains that gave us all of these amazing other innovations, need to put our energy towards this, like fast.”  

TikTok is particularly popular among young people. It has carried viral short videos of the Gaza Genocide over the last two years. The pressure from the Israel lobby forced the sale of Chinese-owned TikTok to an American Zionist group led by Oracle's billionaire founder Larry Ellison. Ellison has given tens of millions of dollars to pro-Israel groups. He is reported to be among the six American Zionist billionaires supporting Israel's wartime economy. 

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