Only a quarter of Americans expressed support for the United States and Israel launching major strikes against Iran, a Reuters-Ipsos poll found in the hours afterward. Public opinion could significantly affect how the Trump administration moves forward, especially with midterm elections eight months away.

• Support for the attacks on Iran was stronger among Republicans than Democrats, with 55 percent of Republicans surveyed approving, 13 percent disapproving and 32 percent unsure.
• Some influential figures in the Republican Party, and even within the Make America Great Again movement, are extremely critical: Commentator Tucker Carlson went so far as to call the attacks “disgusting and evil,” while former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said, “We voted for America First and zero wars.”

President Trump released a video message on Sunday announcing that it could “take four weeks or less” for America to achieve its objectives in Iran, and that he has agreed to speak to the Iranian government. With Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other top leaders killed in the earliest stages of operations, the Trump administration hopes an arrangement can be made between the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iranian people, many of whom have been openly exuberant at the death of the dictatorial supreme leader.

This hope is misplaced. The Revolutionary Guards exist to keep Iran’s Islamist regime Islamist and in power. They cannot be rooted out in mere weeks.

In the 1950s, the late Herbert W. Armstrong boldly forecast that World War ii would be the United States’ last military victory unless Americans repented of their sins and began obeying God. In the decades since, America has suffered humiliating defeat after humiliating defeat in conflicts against smaller powers as it has failed to see them through to successful conclusions.

The Iran strikes will be the same. The death of the ayatollah is a setback for Iran, but the Islamist dictatorship in Tehran will survive, one way or another, unless the American people repent, starting with a humble acknowledgement that, as Benjamin Franklin counseled, “God governs in the affairs of men.”

To see what the Bible says about a superpower losing its wars, read “America Has Won Its Last War,” by Stephen Flurry.