WASHINGTON, March 8 (Xinhua) -- In his latest hardline rhetoric, U.S. President Donald Trump said on social media on Friday that the United States will accept no agreement with Iran short of "unconditional surrender," ruling out negotiations.
Despite that, the Trump administration's actions are facing growing skepticism and criticism from lawmakers, including some Republicans, and have triggered a backlash among supporters of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.
Trump has for years railed against the "endless wars" waged by former U.S. presidents in the Middle East, prompting many to question why the U.S. commander-in-chief ordered a sudden attack on Iran.
"Trump has not provided a consistent rationale, so it is impossible to divine his motives," Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Darrell West told Xinhua.
"He alternates between regime change, taking out missiles, destroying Iran's nuclear capabilities, and wanting oil. Every day, there is a new rationale," West said.
Trump himself, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, among others, have defended the strikes on Iran, insisting that there is an "imminent threat."
"The administration and their shifting set of rationales, and even in a classified setting, could produce no evidence, none, that the U.S. was under an imminent threat of attack from Iran," said Veteran Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, who co-sponsored a war powers resolution in the Senate.
With most Republicans backing the president, the U.S. Senate on Wednesday failed to advance the war powers resolution aimed at curbing Trump's military operations against Iran, effectively giving him a green light to continue the operation.
Nevertheless, some Republicans have questioned Trump's sudden and dramatic policy shift.
Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former Trump ally who broke with Trump in recent months and resigned from her seat in January, said in a post on X that "War with Iran is AMERICA LAST and we voted against it."
Republican Congressman Thomas Massie said in a post on X that "I am opposed to this war. This is not 'America First'."
Podcast host Tucker Carlson, a long-time Trump supporter, slammed the attack on Iran as "absolutely disgusting and evil."
The MAGA-aligned influencer echoed the backlash Trump is getting from his own supporters and claimed that U.S. ally Israel is pushing the United States into conflict with Iran.
"This is Israel's war," Carlson recently said on his podcast. "This war is not being waged on behalf of American national security objectives ... This war is waged purely because Israel wanted it to be waged."
Carlson, who boasts millions of online followers, spoke at the Republican National Convention in 2024 and has personally met with Trump on several occasions.
"It seems like there are no guardrails within the administration -- people who might try to argue against military action, or try to rescue Trump from his own worst instincts in this realm," Christopher Galdieri, a political science professor at Saint Anselm College, told Xinhua.
As the strikes against Iran enter its second week, a new PBS News/NPR/Marist poll released on Friday found that 56 percent of Americans oppose U.S. military action in Iran.
The poll showed strong partisan division: among Republicans, 79 percent and 84 percent support the president's approach and the strikes, respectively, while 86 percent of Democrats are opposed to both.
As of Friday, the conflict continued with Israeli strikes on Lebanon and Tehran, while Iran launched more retaliatory strikes against Israel and U.S. bases and assets in the Gulf.
The developments come ahead of the United States' November midterm elections, with some analysts suggesting Democrats may perform well.
Historically, the first midterms of a president's term tend to favor the opposition, a pattern reflected in Democrats' victories in off-year elections in New York City and the states of Virginia and New Jersey in November 2025.
"Now that Trump and his admin betrayed their campaign promises of No More Foreign Wars/No More Regime Change and Republicans in the majority in the House and Senate are flat out refusing to pass key legislation, voter outrage was shown in yesterday's Texas primary," Greene said in a post on X on Wednesday.
"More Democrats showed up to vote than Republicans in yesterday's Texas primary. If that happens in November's general election, Texas will be flipping its Senate seat blue," she said.
So far, the war is unpopular, partly because the administration did nothing to sell it to the public, and partly because there was no precipitating incident to make people supportive of military action, said Galdieri.
"If that continues to be the case, this war will be another drag on Republican candidates in a year when the fundamentals already favor Democrats," he said. ■