The Trump administration has begun sending warning flares to Iran that might equal some in Tehran's skyline these days about their future if they do not give up their nuclear ambitions. First, Donald Trump himself took a cease-fire off the table while Iran refuses to concede. Now J.D. Vance has followed that up with a stark warning of American intervention. 

In a lengthy written statement on X/Twitter, Vance makes it clear that Trump has been "amazingly consistent" for years about his determination to keep Iran from developing or possessing nuclear weapons. Vance also explained that Iran's civilian nuclear power program does not require uranium enrichment to proceed. Even if it did, Vance argues that Iran's track record of deception and militarization of this program disqualifies them from any benefit of doubt on this point:

It's one thing to want civilian nuclear energy. It's another thing to demand sophisticated enrichment capacity. And it's still another to cling to enrichment while simultaneously violating basic non-proliferation obligations and enriching right to the point of weapons-grade uranium. 

I have yet to see a single good argument for why Iran needed to enrich uranium well above the threshold for civilian use. I've yet to see a single good argument for why Iran was justified in violating its non-proliferation obligations. I've yet to see a single good pushback against the IAEA's findings. 

If Iran won't shut that program down on its own, then others will ensure its destruction. And Vance suggests that others include one Donald J. Trump:

He may decide he needs to take further action to end Iranian enrichment. That decision ultimately belongs to the president. And of course, people are right to be worried about foreign entanglement after the last 25 years of idiotic foreign policy.

But I believe the president has earned some trust on this issue. And having seen this up close and personal, I can assure you that he is only interested in using the American military to accomplish the American people's goals. Whatever he does, that is his focus.

Is an American intervention to disarm Iran of its nuclear program among "the American people's goals"? The answer in polling taken just before Israel launched Operation Rising Lion might surprise some -- even on the Right. 

We already know that the Joe Biden Regency enraged voters with their open-borders policies, a lesson Democrats still haven't learned despite months of polling showing immigration enforcement to be a nearly 80/20 policy. It turns out that Iran appeasement is equally unpopular with American voters. Donald Trump reversed that Biden policy, started by Barack Obama sixteen years ago, in both of Trump's terms. According to new polling from Harvard-Harris CAPS, Trump has landed on another 80/20 issue, quite literally. And if Trump wants to take direct action to prevent a nuclear Iran, he has majority support for it:

Note the consensus on the first question, in which Democrats are slightly firmer on opposing a nuclear Iran -- 86%, with 85% of GOP and indies opposed. Keep in mind the context of the previous two Democrat administrations, which attempted to wash their hands of the issue while trying to shift American policy toward Iran and away from the Sunni nations. Prior to Rob Malley's ouster under still-mysterious circumstances and before the October 7 atrocities kicked off this war, Biden wanted to return to the JCPOA, a path that would have led to Iranian nuclear weapons within a few years.  

With polling like that, one has to wonder to what incentives the Biden Regency was responding. 

The polling on action to prevent Iran from getting its hands on nuclear weapons is more divided, but still surprisingly favors direct military operations, 54/46. Indies support the idea 52/48 and Republicans 69/31, which indicates just how fringy the defeatist/isolationist wing in the GOP actually is. Marc Caputo had more on that yesterday in another poll:

By big margins, Trump 2024 voters:

✅support Israel’s military actions in Iran & Gaza

✅believe Iran is a threat to US security

✅are concerned Iran is making nukes

✅support backing Israel with weapons & intelligence pic.twitter.com/i70HfM6qrM

— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) June 17, 2025

Back in the Harvard-Harris CAPS poll, even 41% of Democrats favor the military option. That may be an acute question this week when it comes to Fordow and dropping effective bunker-busters.

This poll was taken just before the war broke out, on June 11-12; the war broke out late on the 12th. In those days before Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, 60% of American voters expressed support for any Israeli military action aimed at ending the Iranian nuclear program, with only Democrats narrowly opposed to it:

Q: If no acceptable deal with Iran is reached over its nuclear weapons, should the administration support or oppose an Israeli effort to take out Iran's nuclear weapons program?

• Dems: 47/53
• GOP: 78/22
• Ind/Oth: 54/46

However, nearly everyone agreed that any potential deal had to include Iran giving up nuclear enrichment as a precondition. That polls at 74/26 overall, and in all three political demos, support for that position is above 70%.

Politically speaking, Trump has wide latitude to take action in Iran if he sees fit to do so. That doesn't necessarily make it a wise choice for the longer term, but right now he has a pretty firm mandate from the American electorate to ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons. If Iran continues to fight rather than capitulate, don't be surprised if Trump takes that 80/20 to the bank and claims to have delivered on it by delivering a few bunker-busters at Fordow.

Addendum: The other 80/20-ish issues remain solid for Trump. Even after a couple of weeks of riots and "No Kings" geriatric fulminating, Harvard-Harris finds support for deporting criminal illegal aliens literally at 80/20. Closing the border is a literal 2:1 issue, 67/33. If it weren't for the war, those would be the headline takeaways from this latest iteration.