Trump’s Getting an Iran Boost Even if Few Buy His Claims About the Operation’s Success

Though questions remain about the extent of the success of the U.S. military’s bombings of Iran’s nuclear facilities, President Donald Trump’s handling of the conflict in the Middle East is clearly winning him plaudits at home, even as few Americans seem to buy his claims that Tehran’s nuclear program was obliterated.

The bulk of the electorate (44%) said they think the U.S. strikes “damaged, but did not completely destroy Iran's nuclear program,” twice the share who said it was completely destroyed. Notably, Republican voters were split evenly on the question, while the largest shares of Democrats and independent voters aligned with the more moderate assessment of the outcome of the attacks.

The answer to these questions isn’t fully clear, sparking a big debate in Washington following Trump’s victory lap last week.

Shortly after the strikes, CNN reported an assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency that said they “did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program.” The Washington Post later reported that intercepted communications reviewed by American officials showed senior Iranianians downplaying the attacks after lawmakers on Capitol Hill raised public doubts that the operation was as successful as the administration has insisted.

That was all backed up by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who said Tehran could restart enriching uranium “in a matter of months” amid big questions about where Iran’s enriched uranium actually is.

The bottom line

While the assessment of what level of devastation Trump’s strikes actually inflicted on Iran’s nuclear program will take time to develop, what is clear today is that, for the president’s domestic politics in the shorter term, he doesn’t need to oversell his actions in order to claim a victory.

More voters approve than disapprove of Trump’s handling of recent events in the conflict between Israel and Iran (49% to 43%), effectively a reversal of what we found last weekend, before the announcement of a cease-fire between Israel and Iran. 

What’s more, voters are now 13 points more likely to approve than disapprove of Trump’s handling of national security, 53% to 40%, compared with an 8-point margin in last week’s survey, which was conducted during the U.S. military’s strikes in Iran. Voters increasingly reported hearing mostly positive things about foreign affairs over the past week. (Four in 5 reported hearing at least something about the strikes, and 70% said the same of the cease-fire.) 

And even more broadly, the sentiment of news voters reported they consumed about Trump improved to its best point since his well-regarded Middle East swing in May, resulting in his best approval ratings since then.

While Trump has long shown that his instinct is to exaggerate, at least on this issue of foreign policy, where the average American's interest doesn’t run too deep, voters are giving him credit — even if they aren’t going along with his boisterous claims.