Majority of Swedes call US-Israeli strike on Iran wrong, sharp splits by party and gender

• A majority of the Swedish public considers the US-Israeli military strike on Iran to have been wrong
• Opinions split sharply by political affiliation, gender, and age
• The finding aligns with earlier polling showing seven in ten Swedes no longer regard the US as a democracy
• Sweden recently withdrew diplomatic staff from Tehran as the Middle East escalation deepened

A clear majority of Swedes believe the United States and Israel were wrong to attack Iran, according to a survey by Indikator Opinion commissioned by SVT. The poll, conducted as the military escalation in the Middle East dominated headlines, reveals deep fissures in Swedish public opinion — splits that run along lines of party affiliation, gender, and age.

The demographic breakdown is where the survey gets interesting. Swedish opinion on foreign military action has never been monolithic, but the pattern here is stark: women are substantially more critical of the strikes than men, younger Swedes more opposed than older cohorts, and voters aligned with left-leaning parties far more likely to condemn the operation than those on the right. The divides suggest that the attack on Iran is being processed through existing political identities rather than assessed on its strategic merits — a dynamic familiar from every major Western military intervention since Iraq.

The results land in a broader context that makes them harder for Stockholm to ignore. Earlier polling found that roughly seven in ten Swedes no longer consider the United States a democracy — a remarkable number for a country that joined NATO in 2024 and now depends on American security guarantees as the cornerstone of its defence posture. Sweden's government has also recently withdrawn diplomatic staff from its embassy in Tehran as the regional situation deteriorated, a practical step that sits awkwardly alongside a domestic public that opposes the military action driving that deterioration.

For Sweden's political establishment, this creates a tension with no easy resolution. NATO membership was sold to the Swedish public primarily as insurance against Russian aggression, not as alignment with American Middle East policy. But alliances are package deals. Washington does not distinguish between allies who back its security umbrella in the Baltic and allies who publicly oppose its operations elsewhere. The Swedish government has handled this by saying as little as possible — a strategy that works until someone commissions a poll.

Sweden spent decades building an identity as a neutral, peace-promoting middle power. That identity is now formally dead — buried by the NATO accession treaty — but the public attitudes it shaped are very much alive. A majority of the population opposes the signature military action of its new senior alliance partner, and the government's response has been to change the subject. The diplomatic staff left Tehran; the opinion data stays in Stockholm.

Sources: SVT Nyheter