以色列海法大学的 Yuval Feinstein 将现代史上的重大「集旗」事件缩限为仅 7 次，范围从 John F. Kennedy 在 1962 年古巴飞弹危机中的作为，到 George W. Bush 在 2003 年入侵伊拉克。他主张支持度飙升常遵循模式：先有国家受辱，再有被视为恢复国家荣誉的总统行动；此外，对手必须同时威胁美国安全与其世界地位，而总统也需有效塑造舆论。
作者认为 Donald Trump 与伊朗的战事不符上述脚本：一项 1 月的 Economist/YouGov 民调显示，仅 15% 的美国人认为伊朗是「立即且严重的威胁」，且国会与联合国都未敦促美国采取行动；Trump 又在开战前对多国放话、开战后未在椭圆形办公室黄金时段对全国演说，而改以深夜社群影片沟通。相较之下，George W. Bush 在 9/11 后支持率冲至 90%，但阿富汗与伊拉克战争拖延又跌到约 25%；如今极化使支持率「地板更高、天花板更低」，大事也难以显著改变趋势，因而 Mueller「支持率随时间下滑」的规律仍占上风。
The article argues that “rally around the flag” is not an automatic payoff from war. John Mueller’s classic finding is that US presidential approval usually declines the longer a president stays in office, with only a few international crises producing short-lived spikes. Popular culture, such as Wag the Dog (starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro and imagined just before the Monica Lewinsky scandal), reinforces the intuition that a war can distract and boost approval, but real, major rallies have always been rare and brief.
Yuval Feinstein of the University of Haifa narrows the modern record to only seven major rally events, spanning from John F. Kennedy’s handling of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis to George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. He finds a recurring pattern: a national humiliation followed by presidential action perceived to restore national honor; the adversary must also threaten both US security and America’s position in the world, and presidents must help shape opinion to meet that challenge.
On this view, Donald Trump’s conflict with Iran falls short of the script: a January Economist/YouGov poll found only 15% of Americans saw Iran as “an immediate and serious threat,” and neither Congress nor the United Nations urged US action; Trump also diffused attention before fighting and skipped a prime-time Oval Office address afterward, relying instead on a late-night social-media video. By contrast, George W. Bush reached 90% approval after 9/11 but later sank to about 25% as the Afghanistan and Iraq wars dragged on; today, polarization raises the floor but lowers the ceiling, so even major events barely move approval, leaving Mueller’s downward-over-time rule largely intact.