| When President Donald Trump decided to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, he also reasoned his base would stick with him despite a MAGA crowd that would rather stay out of conflicts, The Washington Post’s Natalie Allison and Abigail Hauslohner report. It’s a particularly risky bet for him because no one knows what may happen next, and if this escalates into a broader conflict that involves the United States, there is evidence it could become a political liability for Trump — even among his loyal supporters. According to the limited polling we have on this, reluctance to get involved militarily in Iran is a rare issue Americans can agree on. A majority of Republicans, Democrats and independents oppose U.S. military intervention in Iran, an Economist/YouGov poll taken in the days leading up to the bombing found. And nearly identical percentages of Democrats and Republicans agreed that the U.S. should negotiate with Iran first. A Post survey of 1,000 Americans taken around the same time found that just 25 percent said they thought Trump should launch airstrikes against Iran. Military intervention in the Middle East is also the rare issue that some prominent Trump loyalists will criticize the president on. “This is not our fight,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) posted on social media after Trump announced the strikes, adding she felt like Trump made a “complete bait and switch” with his promise to end foreign wars. “Only 6 months in and we are back into foreign wars, regime change, and world war 3,” she posted. “There are a lot of MAGA that are not happy about this,” MAGA commentator Stephen K. Bannon said in a live show Saturday. Just 32 percent of Republicans polled by The Post in the days leading up to the bombing said they thought Iran posed an “immediate and serious threat.” Before bombing Iran was on most Americans’ radar, Trump got his lowest approval ratings on issues of foreign policy. It seems the longer conflicts go on that he promised to help end, the more Americans disapprove of how he’s handling them. Quinnipiac University started tracking a “notable uptick” in disapproval on how Trump was handling Ukraine and other foreign conflicts seven weeks into his presidency. Another Quinnipiac poll taken in early June found that 57 percent of Americans disapprove of how he was handling the Russia-Ukraine war, which is escalating despite his promise to end it on Day 1 in office. There are other concerns unique about the Iran conflict that skeptical Trump voters can — and have started — bringing up. Like: Was Iran really was this close to having a nuclear bomb? Iran has been working toward building one for years, and the White House asserted last week that Iran was “weeks” away from having one. But most experts say that’s not their understanding, and the Trump administration has yet to produce evidence to support its claim. “Those of us who wrote about the 2003 decision to invade Iraq heard the echo immediately,” the New York Times’ Robert Draper wrote. And how much did the bombs destroy? Trump said in a nationwide address Saturday that the bombing was a “a spectacular military success,” but international experts are still trying to assess the damage. How will Iran retaliate? Less than 48 hours after the U.S. struck Iran, Iran targeted a U.S. military base in Qatar. It could also plan terrorist threats abroad, The Post’s Greg Miller reported. Does Trump want war with Iran? His advisers spent the weekend stressing they weren’t at war with Iran itself but rather its nuclear facilities. But Trump raised the prospect of regime change, which would be a much more involved military undertaking with clear echoes of Iraq and Afghanistan. Trump voters have long been skeptical of a Republican Party that got the U.S. into Iraq and Afghanistan over 20 years ago. Opposition to the Iraq War helped fuel Trump’s rise in national politics and remake the Republican Party into his image. Finally, was this bombing legal? Article I of the Constitution gives the power to declare war solely to Congress, and some Republican lawmakers questioned the constitutionality of the strike weekend. “Frankly, we should’ve debated this,” said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), who has introduced legislation to reassert Congress’s authority to declare war. “[I]t’s hard to conceive a rationale that’s Constitutional,” Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) wrote on social media. All that’s to say if this turns into a drawn-out conflict, Trump may find his own party skeptical it was worth it, and he has yet to present evidence that can change their minds. In fact, there could be plenty of evidence otherwise in the days and weeks ahead. | 
