US deaths rise to 17 in Iran as war increasingly unpopular

US missile strikes continued to rain down on Iran for a 10th day after US President Donald Trump said he would punish the country for the deaths of US soldiers in the region.

"Every time Iran kills an American Soldier they will pay for that killing many times over!" Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday.

So far, 17 US military personnel have been killed during the war, which is becoming increasingly unpopular.

Trump said the latest ongoing strikes were "in honor" of three US soldiers killed in recent attacks by Iran.

Two US soldiers were killed in an Iranian strike on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan on Friday, while another died in Iraq during the controlled detonation of a downed Iranian drone.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell posted on X on Monday that "nearly 100 service members" have been injured since July 7, most of them minor.

US Central Command said the US targeted military command centers, air defense and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and communications networks.

"Iran has been very, very badly damaged. They've lost everything almost militarily. They've got very little left," Trump said. "We hit them very hard again tonight."

Retaliatory strikes by Iran have included attacks on neighbors such as Kuwait, where a power and desalination plant was hit, as well as Jordan and Bahrain.

Iran's Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said that recent US actions showed that Washington wasn't serious about wanting peace.

"Americans keep bringing new military equipment to the region and claim they want to stop the war," Ghalibaf posted on X. "They've bet on our intelligence being as low as their own IQ."

"We've reached the stage of mastery in recognizing these American games, and on that basis, we've prepared ourselves," he posted. "Actions must confirm claims, not contradict them."

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a statement on Monday that, "the reality is that today the Islamic Republic of Iran is engaged in a full-scale war".

"We must be realistic and accept the natural consequences of this resistance," he said.

Recent surveys show that the war is very unpopular in the US.

A Washington Post-Ipsos poll last week showed that 68 percent of Americans said the war in Iran was "not worth fighting", while only 28 percent said it was.

That difference of 40 percent is higher than negative opinions about the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. The most negative views about Iraq, in 2007, found that 66 percent of Americans said it was "not worth fighting", though 33 percent supported it. Notably, the higher numbers against the war in Afghanistan didn't peak until almost eight years into the conflict. In Vietnam, it took more than six years. Conversely, it took only two months for 61 percent of Americans to say the Iran war was "a mistake", CNN reported.

However, unlike Iraq, which 36 percent of Americans thought was "the most important problem" facing the US in 2007, those thinking the same of the war in Iran are in single digits, CNN reported.

Antiwar activist Eric Sheehan had helped organize protests outside Los Angeles Stadium during the recent FIFA World Cup, saying he wanted to "tell the world" that FIFA was using the World Cup to "sportswash" the US.

"We don't think that weapons of war should be used to change governments and to upset sovereignty throughout the world, like the US has done through its whole history," he told Mirror US Sports during the protest.

"The US waging war is wrong," he said. "No matter the conditions inside the country, it's not the US' job to interfere with sovereignty throughout the world."

shiguang@chinadailyusa.com