The missiles are still falling on Tehran. TheStrait of Hormuzis on edge, and so is the world that is staring at an economic crisis. And somewhere between the smoke rising over Iran’s nuclear sites, oil refineries, and Gulf countries – which literally have no say in these attacks and counterattacks other than defending – and the oil price ticker crossing over $100 a barrel, a tale of two leaders is playing out in real time — one who is winning this war politically, and then there’s one who may not survive it. Notably, both leaders are on the same side – US President Donald J. Trump and Israel’s President Benjamin Netanyahu.
Donald Trump, along with Israel, launchedOperation Epic Furyon February 28, 2026, as a strongman move, and still acting like one tough guy. But the move is turning into a liability catalogue. Benjamin Netanyahu lit the fuse on a conflict he has spent two decades engineering — and now he is watching his poll numbers climb with every airstrike. Same war. Opposite trajectories.
Trump’s ground is still at risk… Start with the numbers. A CNN poll conducted shortly after the war began found just 41 percent of Americans approved of the military action against Iran, while 59 percent disapproved. For context, pollster G. Elliott Morris averaged high-quality surveys and found just 38% of Americans support the strikes — lower than retrospective support for the Iraq War in 2014, the infamous US aggression that cost thousands of US soldiers.
The economic fallout of a war is immediate. US crude oil jumped past $100 a barrel (at one point it touched nearly $120 per barrel), up from $90 the day before the Iran war broke out. That spike in oil prices is inversely proportional to the midterm narrative Trump most feared — that an “America First” president is now busy trying to make “Iran Great Again” and is making everyday life more expensive for Americans. Even before the attack on Iran rattled global markets, Trump was losing the argument on the economy — historically his strongest issue.
The political math is unsparing. Since the coordinated attack on Tehran, six American service members have been killed, oil prices have spiked, and Iran has attacked neighbouring countries. Instead of a “one and done” event, which Trump claimed it would be, this war is shaping up to be a longer-running, potentially destabilising saga. Cook Political Report, one of the most credible non-partisan election analysts in the US, puts it plainly: for Republicans ahead of November, there is not much upside.
The deeper wound is internal. Trump ran on ending forever wars. Tucker Carlson has described the strikes as “Israel’s war.” Marjorie Taylor Greene called them contrary to an “America First” agenda. Candace Owens made over a dozen posts arguing Israel goaded the US into battle. These are not fringe voices — they reach tens of millions of MAGA followers. The fracture within the Republican coalition is real and widening.
Chatham House’s research director on Americas frames the contradiction precisely: Trump has now authorised the use of force in seven different countries in his second term, despite having campaigned on being the first president since Jimmy Carter not to start a new armed conflict.
Diplomatically, the collateral damage keeps mounting. The US launched its onslaught without informing many of its allies — a senior member of Italy’s government was in the region when it kicked off and had no idea. European and Gulf partners were blindsided, energy prices hammered their economies, and the “special relationship” with Britain entered open crisis after Trump reacted angrily to London’s refusal to allow US pilots to fly sorties from its bases. Spain has also outrightly refused the US against using its soil for attacking Iran, much to Trump’s displeasure. A prolonged and costly war could weaken Trump’s stranglehold over the Republican Party and hand Democrats a powerful campaign issue heading into the midterms.
Now turn the lens. The contrast is almost clear. A poll by the Israel Democracy Institute found 93% of Jewish respondents in Israel — including 76% of those on the left — supported Bibi, a nickname of Benjamin Netanyahu, on Iran. That is not a wartime rally around the flag. That is near-consensus across one of the most fractured democracies in the world.
Since October 7 cast a stain on Netanyahu’s personal brand as “Mr. Security,” he has used military campaigns to try to rewrite his legacy. Sources close to him say the Iran war is a cornerstone of his reelection strategy. The political logic is clean: battlefield results let him campaign on outcomes and reframe October 7 as the opening chapter of a regional transformation — not the catastrophic security failure.
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