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| 57% Americans support military action in Iran |
| 2006-01-27 |
| WASHINGTON â Despite persistent disillusionment with the war in Iraq, a majority of Americans supports taking military action against Iran if that country continues to produce material that can be used to develop nuclear weapons, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found. The poll, conducted Sunday through Wednesday, found that 57% of Americans favor military intervention if Iranâs Islamic government pursues a program that could enable it to build nuclear arms. Support for military action against Tehran has increased over the last year, the poll found, even though public sentiment is running against the war in neighboring Iraq: 53% said they believe the situation there was not worth going to war. The poll results suggest that the difficulties the United States has encountered in Iraq have not turned the public against the possibility of military actions elsewhere in the Middle East.Bush ratings sink in latest poll Support for a potential military confrontation with Iran was strongest among Republican respondents, among whom 76% endorsed the idea. But even among Democrats, who overwhelmingly oppose the war in Iraq, 49% supported such action. In follow-up interviews, some respondents said they believed Iran posed a more serious threat than Saddam Husseinâs Iraq did. âI really donât think Saddam had anything to do with terrorism, but Iran, I believe, does,â said Edward Wtulich, of Goshen, N.Y. He was among the 1,555 adults who participated in this weekâs survey, which has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. âIran has been a problem, I think, for years,â Wtulich said, âand weâve known about it.â Wtulich, a registered Democrat and retired manager for the New York City Housing Authority, said he supported taking a hard line with Iran despite the strain of the Iraq war on the U.S. military. âIt makes me scared,â he said, âbut we may not have a choice.â Experts said the publicâs views on Iran appeared to have hardened in part because of the more aggressive anti-Western posture of Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Elected last year, he has riled the international community with remarks denying the Holocaust and with declarations that Iran will defy European and U.S. pressure and continue to pursue efforts to enrich uranium. His comments have fostered an impression of him as âvery reckless, a real rogue, as opposed to simply a populist,â said political science professor John Mueller of Ohio State University, who is an authority on wartime public opinion. Poll respondents expressed a strong preference for the United States working with allies to fight international law violations or global aggression. The American publicâs position on Iran appears to have hardened over the last year, a period marked by an increasing international focus on Iranâs nuclear program. When a similar question was asked in a Times poll last January, 50% favored military action against Iran. Regarding Iraq, the latest poll shows that although most Americans remain disenchanted with the war, opinions have stabilized, at least for now. The percentage saying they believe the situation in Iraq was not worth going to war over dipped slightly, to 53%, compared with 56% in a survey a year earlier. Somebody needs to help this guy with the definition of most When asked who was winning the war in Iraq, 33% said the United States, 7% said the insurgents, and 55% said neither side was winning. Americans remain divided over how long U.S. forces should stay in Iraq: 40% believe the United States should remain in Iraq for âas long as it takes,â 36% want U.S. troops withdrawn within a year, and 14% support immediate withdrawal. Respondents were also divided, largely along party lines, over whether the Iraq war is really part of Washingtonâs war on terrorism; 51% say it is, 46% say it is not. President Bush has repeatedly cast Iraq as the central front in the war on terrorism. But many of his administrationâs prewar claims about Iraqâs ties to Al Qaeda have turned out to have been overstated or based on unreliable intelligence sources. The poll also found that 32% of Americans believed that terrorism around the world had increased because of the Iraq situation, 17% believed it had decreased, and 47% believed the problem was about the same. |
| Posted by:Nimble Spemble |
| #11 But the moment the shooting actually starts, the Dhimmocrats will be pissing and moaning about what a "unilaterilist cowboy" Bush is. Regardless if he got every nation on Earth short of France and Germany to contribute aircraft for the bombing runs. |
| Posted by: Shieldwolf 2006-01-27 23:47 |
| #10 Let's see....a poll comes out that OVERWHELMINGLY supports military action against Iran and SUDDENLY... the new Dem talking point is that they've always been for being tough on Iran. For the last 24 hours, I've heard the point made at least 5 times that Bush has not been strong enough. Scary. |
| Posted by: 2b 2006-01-27 21:40 |
| #9 Goodness - if those numbers rise above 100%, then the Dhimmidonk and RINO Senators might begin to feel that they may possibly have sufficient ass coverage to pick up on the House resolution that would authorize Bush to do something. Nah. |
| Posted by: .com 2006-01-27 19:59 |
| #8 Check out the Fox poll NEW YORK Americans think Iran is the country that poses the greatest immediate danger to the United States today, taking over the number one spot from North Korea. A FOX News poll released Thursday shows the public is concerned about Iran attacking the United States with nuclear weapons, and even more concerned about Iran supplying nukes to terrorists. If Iran were to obtain nuclear weapons, an overwhelming 91 percent of Americans say they are concerned it would sell them to terrorists, including 68 percent that say they are very concerned. In addition, eight in 10 Americans are concerned Iran would use nukes to attack a neighboring country (54 percent very concerned), and 73 percent are concerned it would attack the United States (47 percent very concerned). Iran tops the list when respondents are asked to say which country without being read a list poses the greatest immediate danger to the United States. Today a 28 percent plurality says Iran, up from 18 percent a year ago. North Korea, which was first on last years list, comes in second this time around at 17 percent, down from 26 percent (January 2005). Iraq (16 percent) and China (14 percent) are other common mentions. Opinion Dynamics Corporation conducted the national telephone poll of 900 registered voters for FOX News on January 24-25. Over half of Americans think Iran is either an immediate (16 percent) or near-term threat (40 percent) to the United States, while about a third (34 percent) think it is more likely to be a long-term threat. Few think Iran does not pose a threat at all (7 percent). Most of the public believes Iran wants to use uranium enrichment for military purposes (82 percent) rather than for the peaceful purposes it claims (8 percent). Furthermore, 68 percent believe Iran currently has a nuclear weapons program, up from 60 percent a year ago (January 2005). "These broad evaluations of Iran as a present and growing threat highlight the truly perilous situation most Americans see outside our boarders," says Chris Anderson, Opinion Dynamics senior researcher. "We havent even finished one war and many already see the potential need for another." By a wide margin, Americans think Iran is more of a threat to the world than Iraq was before the United States took military action there. Nearly half (47 percent) think Iran is more of a threat than Iraq was, while 25 percent think less of a threat and 19 percent the same. If diplomacy fails, 59 percent support using "whatever military force is necessary," to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons; however, when presented with specific military options support drops. Some 51 percent support using only air strikes, and 46 percent support using air strikes and ground troops. A 54 percent majority is confident in the ability of the Bush administration to handle the situation with Iran, while slightly fewer (46 percent) are confident in the ability of the United Nations to handle Iran. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,182909,00.htm |
| Posted by: Sherry 2006-01-27 19:49 |
| #7 Another interesting item in all of this is if Iran had her own "issues" to worry about, things in Iraq would get better as a result. |
| Posted by: RJB in JC MO 2006-01-27 18:31 |
| #6 Good point about the LAT. One would normally need to skew their polls 5-10% towards the conservative perspective to obtain a legitimate reading of public opinion. |
| Posted by: AzCat 2006-01-27 17:40 |
| #5 53% support the Iraq effort and 57% want to go after Iran. That's pretty close. This is also from the LA Times, Pravda on the Pacific. If they hadn't oversampled democrats the numbers would be even better. I read this as a pretty strong statement in favor of going after the MM. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-01-27 17:28 |
| #4 43% prefer to glow in the dark |
| Posted by: Speting Gleger8891 2006-01-27 17:25 |
| #3 I'd be interested in how many o fht e57% supporting used to support the Iraqi war, but have since lost their ... resolve. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2006-01-27 17:24 |
| #2 Unfortunately, with too many Short-Attention-Span Americans the support is all too fickle. I remember support for OIF running near 70% before the MSM and Dem efforts kicked into high gear. I think the support reflects an assumption of any military action being purely air strikes. |
| Posted by: Xbalanke 2006-01-27 17:22 |
| #1 The poll also found that 32% of Americans... which pretty much matches the Kos-Dem alliance in numbers. Just remember 57% support...including Dems who'll say they supported it before they were against it. Heh. |
| Posted by: Greremp Jomons8469 2006-01-27 16:48 |