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US public skeptical - and hawkish - on Iran
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Despite strong support for diplomatic engagement with Iran, most
United States citizens believe such efforts will ultimately fail and that
Washington should be prepared to use military force to prevent Tehran from
obtaining a nuclear weapon, according to a new poll released in the US on
Tuesday by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
Sixty-one percent of the 1,500 respondents interviewed by Pew said it was "more
important to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means
taking military action" than to "avoid military conflict", according to the
survey, which was conducted over a five-day period ending on Monday.
At the same time, 63% of respondents - an increase of 9% since last time Pew
posed the question, in 2006 - said they approved of Washington negotiating
directly with Iran over the future of its
nuclear program, as it began doing last Thursday in Geneva where the two
countries held their highest-level public talks in 30 years.
But the poll also found great skepticism that either talks or, for that matter,
increased economic sanctions, would succeed in dissuading Iran from giving up
its uranium-enrichment program which some believe is geared towards developing
a nuclear weapon.
Sixty-four percent of respondents said they did not believe direct negotiations
would work, while a somewhat smaller 56% doubted that tougher economic
sanctions would have the desired effect.
The survey comes amid a growing debate here over the results of the October 1
Geneva talks between Iran and the so-called "Iran Six" - the five permanent
members of the United Nations Security Council, including the US, and Germany.
Those talks, which included an unprecedented 45-minute tete-a-tete between the
Iranian envoy Saeed Jalili and US Under Secretary of State for Political
Affairs William Burns, produced two key agreements in principle: that Iran will
promptly open a recently disclosed nuclear facility near Qom to inspections by
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); and that it will send most of
its growing stockpile of low-enriched uranium it has developed at its Natanz
enrichment facility to Russia and France to be further enriched to produce
isotopes for medical purposes.
Most Iran specialists in the US have praised the results as potential
breakthroughs that, if quickly implemented, could defuse growing tensions over
Iran's nuclear program and repeated threats by Israeli officials to take
pre-emptive military action against key facilities to prevent or delay its
potential acquisition of a weapon.
Indeed, the fact that Tehran is willing to export most of its stockpile - which
Western intelligence agencies believe has grown large enough to theoretically
make one bomb - is seen as a major confidence-building measure that would buy
more time for the diplomatic track to bear fruit.
The IAEA is supposed to work out the technicalities of the transfer later this
month.
But neo-conservatives and other hawks have tried to depict the talks as
meaningless, arguing that Tehran is unlikely to comply with any "agreement in
principle" and that, in any event, it continues to produce enriched uranium in
defiance of UN Security Council demands dating back three years that it cease.
"Once again, Washington has entered the morass of negotiations with Tehran,
giving Iran precious time to refine and expand its nuclear program," wrote
George W Bush's far-right former UN ambassador, John Bolton, in the Wall Street
Journal on Monday. "We are now even further from eliminating Iran's threat than
before Geneva."
The hawks, who are concentrated in the so-called "Israel lobby", have long
argued that Iran is bound and determined to acquire nuclear weapons and that
negotiations are thus a waste of time.
They have instead called for Washington to immediately impose "crippling
sanctions" against Tehran - some of which are now being considered actively by
the US Congress - as a last resort before taking pre-emptive military action or
giving a "green light" to Israel to do so.
The new poll offers ammunition to both sides in the ongoing debate.
On the one hand, it suggests that a strong majority supports Obama's strategy
of diplomatic engagement and that that support is bipartisan. Nearly two out of
every three self-identified Democrats and Republicans believe Washington should
engage in direct talks with Iran.
But Democrats are more hopeful than Republicans that Washington and its allies
will be successful in getting Iran to curb its nuclear program. Just one out of
10 Republicans believes talks alone will work; the comparable percentage for
Democrats is one out of three.
At the same time, nearly eight out of 10 respondents favor tougher economic
sanctions against Iran as a source of leverage. Again, the pollsters found
little partisan difference either on support for sanctions - 72% of Democrats
and 81% of Republican - or on their likely effectiveness - 57% of Republicans
and 52% of Democrats said they doubted that sanctions would work.
The biggest partisan difference was found over the willingness to take military
action if neither talks nor sanctions produce the desired effect.
Seventy-one percent of Republicans agreed that it was "more important" to
prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, "even if it means taking military
action", while 51% of Democrats took that position. Indeed, only three out of
10 Democrats said it was "more important to avoid military conflict, even if
Iran may develop nuclear weapons".
The majority's willingness to use force to prevent Iran from developing a
nuclear weapon stands in marked contrast to survey results during the last
years of George W Bush's presidency. Pluralities of nearly 50% told NBC
News/Wall Street Journal polls in 2007 and 2008 that the US "should not
initiate military action ... if Iran continues with its nuclear research and is
close to developing a nuclear weapon".
In late 2007, a majority of 55% of respondents told a Gallup Poll that
Washington "should not take military action against Iran ... [if] US economic
and diplomatic efforts do not work". Only 34% said they though military action
would be appropriate.
The increased public hawkishness toward Iran was also reflected in a the latest
in a series of annual surveys of US Jewish opinion released last week by the
American Jewish Committee (AJC).
Its survey, which was conducted during the first half of September, found that
56% of Jews would support, and 36% would oppose, US military action against
Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. In its 2008 survey, the AJC
found that 47% of US Jews were opposed to military action, while 42% supported
it.
Two-thirds of the 800 Jewish respondents who took part in the latest poll said
they would support Israel's taking military action against Iran, while 28 said
they would oppose it.
(Inter Press Service)
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