Two-thirds of Americans (71%) expect a war with Iran over the next few years, according to a Reuters / Ipsos poll after the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.

In a similar poll in May 2019, 51% of respondents expected war.

"A separate Reuters/Ipsos poll that ran Jan. 3-6 found that 41% consider Iran to be an "imminent threat" to the United States, up 17 points from a similar poll that ran in May 2019. (tmsnrt.rs/35xJUDA)

It also found that 71% of Americans believe that the U.S. will be at war with Iran within the next few years, up 20 points from May’s poll," the source noted. "A growing minority of Americans say they are now in favor of a “preemptive attack” on Iran’s military. The poll found that 27% said the United States should strike first, up 15 points from May. Another 41% said the United States should not strike first and 33% said they do not know.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online, in English, throughout the United States. It gathered responses from 1,108 adults in the Jan. 6-7 poll and 1,005 adults in the Jan. 3-6 poll. The results have a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of about 4 percentage points."

As reported earlier, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) of Iran has this morning announced the start of operations to exact revenge for the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani. Surface-to-surface missiles have been fired from Iran toward the Ayn al-Assad and the Erbil bases in western Iraq, where the US military is stationed.