Polling throughout the conflict with Iran has consistently shown that young Americans are far more likely than older generations to oppose American military action. But the more important question is not simply why young Americans oppose the conflict. The question is whether they actually understand it.

New polling from Economist/YouGov found that among Americans ages 18 to 29, only 13% supported military action against Iran, while 63% opposed it. Just 4% strongly supported it. By contrast, older Americans were significantly more supportive of the operation.

Many commentators have interpreted these numbers as evidence that younger Americans are simply more skeptical of military intervention. There is some truth to that. Young Americans have historically been more likely to oppose war, from Vietnam to Iraq. But today’s opposition appears to be driven by something deeper than traditional anti-war sentiment.

Many young Americans are developing strong opinions about complex international conflicts they do not fully understand because universities have spent years teaching them to view foreign policy through a simplistic oppressor-versus-oppressed framework.

Across college campuses, students are increasingly taught that power itself is suspicious. American influence is often portrayed as inherently problematic, while nations and groups that oppose the United States are frequently viewed through a more sympathetic lens.

Last week, a senior lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania published an article criticizing President Donald Trump’s memorandum of understanding with Iran, describing it as a “costly return to prewar conditions” and arguing that the conflict produced no clear winner.

That framing ignores reality. The United States and its allies inflicted significant damage on Iran’s military capabilities and strategic infrastructure. Iran suffered substantial losses while failing to achieve many of its objectives. By virtually every military metric, the outcome was far more costly for Iran than for the United States.

Yet students exposed to arguments like these are often encouraged to believe that American strength and Iranian aggression should be viewed as morally equivalent.

When professors consistently frame conflicts this way, students absorb the message. They are taught to see American military power not as deterrence, national defense, or a response to hostile regimes, but simply as another example of American overreach.

The consequences are increasingly visible on college campuses. Earlier this year, roughly 100 students marched across San Diego State University carrying Palestinian flags and protesting American foreign policy in the Middle East. Similar demonstrations have occurred at universities nationwide, often featuring students passionately condemning U.S. actions while displaying little understanding of the region’s history, political dynamics, or security concerns.

For years, diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, critical theory frameworks, and related ideological movements have encouraged students to divide the world into categories of oppressors and oppressed. Once students are trained to view every issue through that lens, it becomes easy to conclude that America must always be the oppressor and America’s adversaries must always be the victims.

The problem is that international relations are rarely that simple.

Iran is not merely a powerless nation standing up to a global superpower. It is a regime that has spent decades funding terrorist organizations, threatening American interests, targeting U.S. allies, and destabilizing the Middle East. Students deserve to learn those facts alongside criticisms of American foreign policy.

These students will eventually become voters, journalists, teachers, policymakers, and elected officials. If they are misinformed about foreign policy today, those misunderstandings may shape public policy tomorrow.

None of this means every student should support military action against Iran. Reasonable people can disagree about war, diplomacy, and America’s role in the world. Healthy debate is essential in a free society. But debate should be rooted in facts, not ideological narratives.

Bias in political discussion is inevitable. Colleges do not need to eliminate bias entirely. What they should do is expose students to competing viewpoints and allow them to reach their own conclusions. If universities continue teaching students that America is always the villain, we should not be surprised when young Americans oppose American strength abroad without fully understanding the conflicts they are protesting in the first place.