Trump’s collapsing popularity exposes strategic failure in the war against Iran

TEHRAN — President Donald Trump’s sinking popularity has driven his job approval rating to a historic low of 33 percent, offering a direct political measure of the failure of the joint US-Israeli military strategy against Iran.

As documented in nationwide polling conducted by Reuters/Ipsos, this dramatic decline—matching the lowest point recorded during his first term—exposes the total collapse of Washington's attempt to enforce its regional dictates through coercive military power.

What was initially promoted by coalition planners as a brief, decisive campaign to break Tehran's sovereignty has instead degenerated into an unsustainable war of attrition. Rather than forcing Iranian compliance, the coalition’s aggressive aerial bombardment has been effectively absorbed and neutralized by Iran’s robust defensive depth, strategic foresight, and sovereign resilience.

At the core of the US-Israeli strategic failure lies a profound underestimation of Iranian military doctrine and defensive capabilities. While Washington and Tel Aviv assumed that initial strikes would cripple national infrastructure and paralyze command networks, Iran deployed its asymmetric capabilities to bottle up vital energy export routes through the Strait of Hormuz.

By maintaining operational leverage over critical maritime chokepoints, Iran effectively reversed the strategic pressure, triggering global energy disruptions that directly impacted Western economies. According to a four-day Reuters/Ipsos survey, 64 percent of Americans now actively disapprove of Trump’s job performance, while an overwhelming 80 percent recognize that US involvement will persist for an extended period, completely dismantling early White House promises of a swift victory. The mounting political turmoil inside the United States demonstrates how Iran’s long-term defense strategy has transformed the coalition’s home front into an unsustainable liability. With domestic fuel prices surging nearly a third compared to last year, public tolerance for foreign intervention has evaporated among the American electorate.

Official attempts to characterize rising consumer costs as a necessary sacrifice have failed to convince an inflation-weary population, with further analysis from the Washington Examiner noting that only a small fraction of voters believe the economic costs of the campaign are worth it. Ultimately, Trump’s collapsing approval rating stands as definitive proof that Iranian strategic endurance has shattered the mechanics of US-Israeli military coercion, trapping the coalition in a high-cost political and economic quagmire.