Republicans, independent voters grapple with Trump's strikes on Iran

President Donald Trump campaigned on not getting the U.S. mired in new "forever wars," and on an agenda of placing "America First."

But the U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran, which the administration has not put a timeline on, have sparked fears of another potential quagmire, despite insistence from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that would not be the case.

More than half a dozen Republican and independent voters who have previously voted for or expressed some support for Trump in a previous ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll expressed a range of views on the ongoing campaign, dubbed Operation Epic Fury.

They shared their thoughts as new polling shows Americans, including independents, more opposed than in support of the latest Iran strikes, although majorities of Republicans support them.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll, which was fielded after the U.S. launched strikes on Iran Saturday and Sunday, found that 27% of Americans approve of U.S. military strikes against Iran, while 43% disapproved. A sizable 30% said they didn't have an opinion or skipped the question.

The poll also found that among Republicans, 55% approved of U.S. military strikes against Iran, while 13% disapproved; and among independents, 19% approved while 44% disapproved.

A separate poll from the Washington Post conducted on Sunday found that 47% of Americans felt the U.S. should "stop military strikes at this time," including 51% of independents, although 54% of Republicans say the U.S. should continue them. The Post poll also found 52% of Americans overall opposed to Trump ordering airstrikes in Iran, including 59% of independents, while 81% of Republicans supported airstrikes.

Harrison Huff, a three-time Trump voter from South Carolina, told ABC News on Sunday he regrets his vote for Trump "more and more each day," saying that Trump seems to him to be "trying to get back at people that he feels are against him. That's not what the office is for, in my opinion."

On Iran, Huff said he supported acting against Iran's nuclear ambitions but was not certain about the state of its programs after the U.S. attacked Iran's nuclear facilities last summer.

"I'm definitely not super excited over it," he said of the campaign. "I don't know what to do, you can't make this a forever war. You're going to leave, and then what?"

"He shouldn't have moved our military there in the first place, because I thought they were still in talks," Huff said. "You're supposed to go to Congress and get approval. He's just going rogue."

The U.S. and Iran had been holding indirect talks as recently as Thursday in Geneva.

Donna DiRusso, a New York real estate agent who considers herself an independent and voted for Trump three times, said she was "110%" supportive of the U.S. strikes on Iran.

"I remember when those people took American hostages [in 1979] and wouldn't return them. I remember when they blew up different Army bases," she said, referring to the Marine Corps barracks bombing in Beirut in 1983.

She added, "We're not in a war. We're in -- you go in -- you take out the bad people -- no American blood spilled. War is when you have two people going back and forth."

DiRusso spoke with ABC News on Saturday, before news broke about three service members killed as part of the attacks on Iran. U.S. Central Command said Monday that a fourth U.S. service member had died after sustaining injuries during Iran's attacks.

Szymon, an independent from New Mexico who works as a tutor and declined to share his last name for privacy reasons, told ABC News on Sunday that he had found the news that the U.S. had struck Iran surprising -- "I didn't think we'd actually do something like that."

He said he had mixed feelings about Trump's gambit, saying he didn't want American troops put in danger "and definitely don't want us to get dragged into another war." But, he added, he was hopeful maybe the strikes would lead to a more moderate government in Iran.

Iran's government "was a very authoritarian government, killing a lot of protestors," he told ABC News.

Haley Cheon, a grant administrator and Republican who lives in northern Kentucky outside Cincinnati, told ABC News she "generally" supported the U.S. operation but had concerns about the scope of the mission and lack of congressional approval.

"I certainty do not support everything President Trump does, but in this case with my understanding I do think that this operation is a necessary step," she said.

Joel Gontjes, a Republican voter in Michigan who works in human resources, told ABC News on Saturday, "I think it's unfortunate that we had to get to this point. I'm probably somewhere to the right of the middle. I would say that what we've always done with Iran isn't getting us anywhere."

Gontjes said that he also felt the longer the U.S. waited for any actions, the "more problems" the country would have with Iran. He said he is opposed to having any U.S. boots on the ground, but "that depends on what Iran does."

Some of the critics on the right have argued that the president's decision to strike Iran goes against Trump's "America First" campaign promises and general claims to prioritize America over foreign policy objectives. But Gontjes took a more nuanced view.

"Is this America First? Yeah, at the same time I have a hard time saying he's not allowed to do anything that's strictly not America First," Gontjes said.

"What he has done has the greatest potential to create an everlasting peace with Iran," he added.

Will Carter, a water district manager in southern California who also voted for Trump in all three elections Trump ran in, said on Saturday that he felt the strikes were warranted, "considering everything Iran has done in the past 40 years."

But he said he did not want the U.S. to be involved with the country for too long, telling ABC News, "I think we have learned our lesson on that ... Iranians want to rule themselves."