According to a Thursday USA Today/Ipsos poll, 55 percent of US citizens say that the slaying of top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani has made the country less safe, with half as many claiming it made them safer.
In the wake of the killing of the Iranian top military officer, Iran attacked US forces at the Ayn Al-Asad Air Base and a facility in Erbil in Iraq with 15 ballistic missiles.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani previously took to Twitter to respond to Trump's threat to attack 52 targets in Iran.
Those who refer to the number 52 should also remember the number 290. #IR655
— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) January 6, 2020
Never threaten the Iranian nation.
The number of Americans who condemn the US president's behaviour towards Iran and consider it "reckless" stands at 52 percent, which exceeds the number of those who think otherwise by nearly two times.
Trump has justified Soleimani's murder by claiming that the Quds Force commander had been plotting to blow up the US Embassy in Baghdad.
"We caught a total monster and we took him out and that should have happened a long time ago. We did it because they were looking to blow up our embassy", Trump said.
Many respondents, or 42 percent, approve of the president's decision to kill the Iranian general, while 33 percent said they were opposed to the decision, with a quarter of those surveyed remaining undecided.
The new head of Iran's Quds Force Esmail Ghaani said that Tehran would continue the course pursued by slain general Qassem Soleimani.
"We will continue in this luminous path with power", Brigadier General Esmail Ghaani said, noting that Iranian missile strikes carried out on US targets at a base in Iraq on Wednesday would eventually drive America out of the region.
Some 52 percent of respondents claim the attack made it more likely that Iran would proceed to develop nuclear weapons.
On Sunday, Tehran stated that as a result of the extrajudicial killing of its top general by the Trump administration, it would discontinue its remaining obligations under the JCPOA, whose fate had been unclear after Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the agreement in 2018.
"By taking the fifth step in reducing its obligations, Iran is abandoning the last key practical limitation under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which is dealing with the number of centrifuges", an Iranian government statement said.
The online survey of 1,005 adults was taken Tuesday and Wednesday and had a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.
