March 02, 2026 10:46 AM UTC

Trump's War on Iran Going Over Like a Lead Zeppelin

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

As the Denver Post’s Katie Langford reports, Coloradans woke up Saturday morning with the rest of the globe reacting to President Donald Trump’s latest and biggest-yet “look over there” news cycle disruption: commencing with no congressional approval an open-ended war against Iran intended to topple that nation’s regime:

Several of Colorado’s top elected officials called for congressional intervention hours after the U.S. and Israel launched a major attack on Iran, with the state’s federal delegation reacting largely along party lines, either supporting or decrying Saturday’s military action by President Donald Trump’s administration…

Democratic U.S. Reps. Jason Crow, Joe Neguse, Brittany Pettersen and Diana DeGette and Sen. Michael Bennet all released statements calling for Congress to vote on a war powers resolution.

“Trump is plunging us into another war in the Middle East. He’s learned nothing from decades of failed conflicts,” Crow said. “It’s a war of choice with no clear end game, no authorization from Congress and little support from Americans.”

When Rep. Jason Crow asserts that Trump’s attack on Iran enjoys “little support from Americans,” as Reuters reported yesterday, he’s got the polls overwhelmingly on his side:

Only one in four Americans approves of the U.S. strikes that killed Iran’s leader, while about half — including one in four Republicans — believe President Donald Trump is too willing to use military force, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that concluded on Sunday.

Some 27% of respondents said they approved of the strikes, while 43% disapproved and 29% were not sure. About nine in 10 respondents said they had heard at least a little about the strikes, which began early on Saturday…

The poll showed that 56% of Americans think Trump, who has also ordered strikes in Venezuela, Syria and Nigeria in recent months, is too willing to use military force to advance U.S. interests. The vast majority of Democrats – 87% – held this view, as did 23% of Republicans and 60% of people who don’t identify with either political party.

Trump may not have the support of the voting public in this latest foreign entanglement making a mockery of Trump’s “President of Peace” branding, but standing in Trump’s corner as always is America’s Most Vulnerable Incumbent™ Rep. Gabe Evans. In a statement Saturday, Evans voiced his full-throated support for Trump’s unpopular war on Iran like a good soldier:

Operation Epic Fury is a necessary step to eliminate Iran’s nuclear weapon capabilities, eliminate imminent threats to the United States and our allies, and defend our core national security interests. The United States has strong support from ally nations in the Middle East and will help liberate the Iranian people.

This is of course the same Gabe Evans who signed the Libertarian pledge to oppose “endless wars,” in case anyone was hoping for consistency:

Although the initial joint US/Israeli strikes over the weekend appear to have killed a large number of senior Iranian leaders including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, the Iranian regime continues to function and launch retaliatory strikes at American bases across the Middle East. Unlike the removal of Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro from power right after the New Year, there has been no promise from the administration of a short conflict.

And that’s because the administration doesn’t appear to have any specific plan for what comes next:

President Trump told the New York Post this morning that he isn’t ruling out boots on the ground in Iran. “I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground — like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” Trump told the tabloid. He’s been taking calls from many reporters over the last 24 hours, offering at times contradictory rationales and expectations for the conflict.

Meanwhile, the real-world consequences of this action are lining up to impact the daily lives of American voters. 9NEWS reports that Colorado drivers should get ready for gas prices to hit $4 a gallon. American troops have already been killed in action. Global markets are sinking over the prospect of a protracted conflict. Trump this morning said the war could go on for weeks. After Trump returned to office on a promise to put a stop to the nation’s involvement in “endless wars,” Trump’s continuous employment of military force under increasingly thin legal justifications as President has led to the possibility of a conflict on the scale of all the wars Trump condemned–or even bigger.

On the upside, for one man anyway, Jeffrey Epstein and Trump’s sputtering Golden Age are out of the headlines.