Just one in three Americans support the war on Iran, the lowest reading in a Reuters/Ipsos poll since the five-month-old conflict’s early days, with most respondents saying that President Donald Trump has failed to explain his goals, Reuters reported.

The poll, conducted Friday through Sunday, also showed the Republican president’s approval rating ticking higher to 37%, up three points from last month when his rating tied the lowest of his presidency.

Trump has offered shifting objectives for the conflict such as aiding Iranians to topple their leaders, taking out Iran’s ballistic-missile capabilities and preventing it from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The poll found that 69% of Americans — including four in 10 Republicans – think Trump has not “clearly explained the goals of U.S. military involvement in Iran.”

White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said Trump will not make decisions based on “fluid opinion polls” and reiterated the president’s resolve to prevent Iran from ever acquiring a nuclear weapon. “What matters most to the American people is having a commander in chief who takes bold action to keep them safe,” Wales said.

Approval of the conflict has been below 40% since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes ⁠on February 28 — a stark contrast to the opening months of other recent conflicts.

While each had different context, the Iraq War from 2003 to 2011 had the support of about 70% of Americans in its early months. During the early days of the Afghanistan War, which lasted from 2001 to 2021, about 90% of the country backed the war, to polling, by Gallup.

Public disapproval of the war is weighing on Trump and his Republican Party ahead of the November midterm elections when the president’s allies will defend slim majorities in the U.S. Congress.

“It’s not clear why we started a war with them. I have no idea,” said Alex Womack, a retired turbine repair specialist from Stockbridge, Georgia, who became a Republican in part because he liked how Republican President George H.W. Bush handled the Gulf War in 1991.

Womack, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps during that conflict, said his support for Trump has ebbed because of the war. “I don’t think he’s doing very well, personally,” he said.

To date, 18 American soldiers have died in the conflict while thousands have died in Iran and in Lebanon, where Iran-allied fighters have battled Israeli forces.

The war has pushed gasoline prices sharply higher, a blow to the finances of many Americans. ⁠Gasoline prices are averaging just over $4 a gallon nationwide, up from about $3 a gallon just before the war started on February 28, read the report.

“This puts pressure on the party in a myriad of ways, all of them bad,” said Alex Conant, a Republican political strategist and a White House spokesman during the presidency of George W. Bush. “The White House officials have been saying since January that they need to win economic arguments. It’s hard to win the economic arguments when you’re clearly focused on foreign policy.”

Independent registered voters in the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll said they were favoring the Democratic congressional candidate over the Republican by 36% to 20%. Independent voters also favored Democrats over Republicans on economic ⁠policy, the poll found

In campaigning for the 2024 presidential election, Trump said he would keep the U.S. out of enduring conflicts. He initially estimated the Iran war would last four to five weeks. He has bristled over comparisons to other wars, including the Vietnam War, which lasted two decades and claimed the lives of more than 58,000 U.S. soldiers.

Rhyan Anderson, an independent from Fairburn, Georgia, who voted for Trump in ⁠2024, said he thinks Trump should focus on domestic problems rather than on helping Israel or other allies.

“My biggest thing is just focus on the people who are actually in the country,” said Anderson, who works two jobs in security and data collection and said he voted for Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. “I know we have allies and things like that, but there’s a lot of people here ⁠that really need help.”

Since mid-March, the Reuters/Ipsos survey has asked respondents whether they support or oppose military strikes on Iran. At that time, 37% said they supported the war.

That compared to 27% approval on the day the war began, when the Reuters/Ipsos survey also gave respondents the option to choose unsure, which 29% did.

The latest Reuters/Ipsos survey, which was conducted online and nationwide, gathered responses from 1,246 U.S. adults and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points in either direction.

Myanmar’s military ​has sharply escalated attacks on civilians since a new administration took office in the war-torn country, a conflict ‌monitor said on Monday, even as regional governments ramp up diplomatic engagement.

The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) said the onslaught was a result of the tactics deployed by Myanmar’s new military chief who took over in late March as his predecessor prepared to become the country’s president, Reuters reported.

“Since the ruling ​junta in Myanmar reconfigured its military command structure in March, civilians have been subject to the military’s worsening repression ​and intensified aerial bombing campaign,” ACLED said.

“These adjustments included the regular deployment of specialised groups of two ⁠to five jet fighters executing sustained airstrikes against single targets.”

A Myanmar government spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions from ​Reuters.

ACLED gathers data on Myanmar’s ongoing conflict from media reports and local partners, as well as reports by the UN, international monitoring ​groups and local human rights organisations.

Myanmar was plunged into turmoil after the military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in February 2021, sparking a civil war that has killed some 100,000 people and displaced millions.

Days before becoming president after an election that banned most opposition, Min Aung Hlaing appointed long-time loyalist and ​former spymaster Ye Win Oo as the military’s new commander-in-chief.

Under his command, the military has launched renewed offensives into several border regions, including ​a frontier area with critical rare earth deposits and other vital trade routes.

“Reprieve for civilians is unlikely as the junta focuses its efforts ‌on consolidating ⁠control following coup leader Min Aung Hlaing’s transition from commander of the military to civilian president in April,” ACLED said.

MASS KILLINGS

During the first half of 2026, ACLED said it recorded more than a dozen mass killings, resulting in over 450 civilian fatalities, around 40% of them in Myanmar’s central dry zone known as the Anyar region.

In May, hundreds of junta troops swept through parts of ​Myit Chay township, across the ​river from the ancient temples ⁠of Bagan, killing at least 40 people, three residents of the area told Reuters.

“About 700 soldiers came into the town, grabbed the belongings of the people here and then beat them and ​killed them,” said Ye Naung, 35.

Reuters could not independently verify accounts of the incident at ​Myit Chay, which ⁠is part of ACLED’s event database with at least five fatalities and was reported by local media.

“The military’s tactics in 2026 so far show merely shifting modalities of civilian repression rather than any reduction in its severity,” ACLED said.

The political transition in Myanmar has triggered a ⁠flurry of ​diplomacy, with Min Aung Hlaing travelling to key neighbours India and China.

There has also been tentative ​re-engagement with the 11-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations bloc, which barred Myanmar’s ruling generals from its summits after the coup.

Min Aung Hlaing will make an official ​visit to Thailand on August 6 to 7, as he pushes for further legitimacy.