@@ Polls: anti-Iran propaganda is working -- 70% of Americans believe Iran has nuclear weapons; Americans are even dumber than Bush! @@
Arash
February 9, 2006
In Public's Eyes, Iran Biggest Foreign Menace
By Jim Lobe
Washington -- The escalating crisis over Iran's nuclear programme appears to have
persuaded the U.S. public that Iran now poses a greater threat to the United States
than any other country, or even al-CIA-duh (al-Qaeda), according to recent surveys.
And even though the public remains worried and unhappy about the U.S. invasion and
occupation of Iraq, a significant percentage has already begun thinking of eventual
military action against Iran.
"Americans are telling us that they would prefer we pack our bags and leave Iraq now,
and yet they appear ready to do some damage to Iran if it proceeds with its nuclear
programme", said John Zogby (http://tinyurl.com/8nshb), president of the polling
firm, Zogby International, which released a survey last week in which nearly half of
the respondents (47%) said they favored military action, preferably along with
European allies, to halt Iran's nuclear programme.
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1067
Still, despite the high level of concern, the polls do not show eagerness to take
military action now or unilaterally. The public appears to prefer an effort to settle
the crisis diplomatically, preferably through the United Nations.
If that fails, the poll respondents indicated they would prefer for any military
action to be undertaken in conjunction with other countries and, in any event,
strongly oppose an invasion designed to overthrow the regime, as in Iraq.
"Are people clamoring for military action at this point? Definitely not", said JEW
Steven Kull (http://tinyurl.com/b3yog), director of the University of Maryland's
Programme on International Policy Attitudes (www.pipa.org), and a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
"Between now and military action, the public would definitely be looking for more
negotiations. And then they want to try to do something multilaterally", he said.
"They'd have to cross a whole bunch of hurdles before you'd get military action".
Nonetheless, the latest poll, released Tuesday by the Pew Research Centre for the
People and the Press, found that some 27% of respondents cite Iran as Washington's
greatest menace -- three times the percentage who ranked it at the top of foreign
threats just four months ago.
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=269
The same survey, which polled 1500 adults during the first week of February, also
found that nearly three in four (72%) believed Tehran was "likely" to launch attacks
on Israel if it obtained nuclear weapons. An even higher percentage (82%) said they
believed the Iranian government would likely transfer nuclear weapons to terrorists.
The latest results strongly suggest that the combination of belligerent declarations
by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; Tehran's defiance of European appeals not
to resume its uranium enrichment activities; and efforts by Israel and its allies
here to mobilize international and U.S. opinion has moved Iran to the centre of the
public's foreign-policy consciousness.
This shift in some ways echoes how the hawks in the administration of President
George W. Bush focused the public's post-9/11 fears on Saddam in the year-long run-up
to the Iraq invasion in March 2003.
"How Dangerous is Iran" was the bold headline that ran along a photo of Ahmadinejad
on the cover of this week's "Newsweek" magazine. "The Next Nuclear Threat" and
"Radical Islam in Power" topped the cover.
Similarly, a familiar cast of Washington hawks -- many of whom greeted Ahmadinejad's
election and declaration that Israel should be "wiped off the map" as a godsend for
their own efforts to rouse the public against Iran -- has also been talking up the
threat.
"An 'Intolerable' Threat" was the title of the neo-conservative Wall Street Journal's
lead editorial, while the "Weekly Standard" featured an article entitled "Iran or
Bust: The Defining Test of Bush's War Presidency", which argued that Iran had become
"the central crisis of the Bush presidency".
In an interview on the public television network PBS's "Newshour" this week
(http://tinyurl.com/cceuj), Vice President Dick Cheney, citing Ahmadinejad's "pretty
outrageous statements", described the nuclear standoff as "dangerous" and warned that
"no options are off the table", even as he rejected repeated questions by the host
about "striking parallels" between the escalating crisis and the run-up to the Iraq
war.
At the same time, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice blamed Iran
(http://tinyurl.com/bpfpb) for inciting this week's violent protests in the Middle
East against offensive cartoons about Mohammed published in European newspapers.
In that respect, the Pew poll results were perhaps the most striking. Over the last
15 years, an average of only about 6% of respondents rated Iran as the "greatest
danger" to the United States. In October, the same month that Ahmadinejad threatened
Israel for the first time, that grew to 9%, still far below Iraq (18%), China (16%),
and North Korea (13%).
But the latest survey found that the percentage had tripled to 27% compared to China
(20%), Iraq (17%), North Korea (11%), and al-CIA-duh (al-Qaeda)/terrorists (4%).
Moreover, two-thirds of respondents listed Iran's nuclear programme, which U.S.
intelligence agencies believe is still a decade away from developing an actual
weapon, as a "major threat" -- compared to 60% who described North Korea's nuclear
programme that way, despite the fact that Pyongyang is believed to have built as many
as a dozen bombs.
Pew director Andrew Kohout (http://people-press.org/about/bios/kohut.php3), however,
noted that 55% of respondents in the October poll said they believed that Iran
already possessed nuclear weapons.
Nevertheless, the public is divided about what to do about Iran, according to the
survey's results. Nearly four in five respondents (78%) said they wanted the UN to
deal with the situation, compared with only 17% who said the United States should.
Nearly 80% of respondents said they had heard about Iran's announcement that it would
resume its enrichment activities. Nearly half of those who said they had heard a lot
about it ranked Iran as the greatest threat to the United States, according to the
poll.
"There's been so much written and broadcast about the intransigence of the Iranians,
it would've been remarkable otherwise", Andrew Kohout told IPS.
A poll taken in late January by the Washington Post and ABC television network found
strong support for diplomatic efforts and economic sanctions to persuade Iran to curb
its nuclear programme.
Asked in the same poll whether they would support U.S. bombing of suspected nuclear
sites if those steps don't work, 42% were in favor, while 54% opposed the idea.
In a similar poll taken at the same time by Fox News, nearly 60% of respondents said
the United States should be prepared to "use whatever military force is necessary" to
prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons if diplomacy failed, and 47% said they
considered Iran more of a threat than Iraq was when the U.S. invaded.
More than 90% of respondents said they were either "very concerned" (68%) or
"somewhat concerned" (23%) that Iran would give nuclear weapons to terrorists; and
more than 80% who said they were either "very" (54%) or "somewhat concerned" (27%)
that it would attack a neighboring country.
Steven Kull attributed these more dramatic results in large part to the impression
created by Ahmadinejad since his election. "I think this is caused more by the
personality of the president and his comments than specific developments in the
negotiations over the nuclear programme. He certainly comes across as a hothead, and
that has definitely focused people's minds",
At the same time, less than 20% in the Fox News poll and a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll
conducted a few days before described Iran as an "immediate" or "imminent" threat.
* Jim Lobe, works as Inter Press Service's correspondent in the Washington, D.C.,
bureau. He has followed the ups and downs of neo-conservatives since well before
their rise in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32108
RBRK
who depict Iranians as savages
Arash
Sirknight67
washed islamic robot
Arash
kangarooistan
ARASH IS LIKE ALL MUSLIMS THEY JUST NEVER GIVE UP
AND WILL KEEP POSTING AWAY TILL THE YANKS BLEED TO DEATH TRYING TO
DEFEAT THE 1.5 BILLION ARASHs
POOR SILLY YANKS WILL ONE DAY WORK IT OUT