Scant US Public Support for Israeli Strike on Iran

[Better Believe It]

Scant US Public Support for Israeli Strike on Iran
Despite misinformation campaign and misleading polls, Americans don't seem to want another Middle East war
by Common Dreams staff
March 14, 2012

Only one in four Americans favors Israel conducting a military strike against Iran's nuclear program, according to a new poll conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) and the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland. Nearly 70% of those polled favor the continued pursuit of US and other major powers to negotiate with Iran, a position that is supported by majorities of Republicans (58%), Democrats (79%) and Independents (67%).



"Meanwhile," reports Jim Lobe at Inter Press Service, "a second public opinion poll released Tuesday by the New York Times and CBS News found a slight majority (51 percent) of 1,009 respondents who said they would support the U.S. taking military action in order to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons." Thirty-six percent of respondents would oppose such a strike.

However, The NYT/CBS poll, notes Lobe, "did not offer an option for continued diplomacy or negotiations." And as Think Progress' Eli Clifton points out, this poll makes misleading assumptions about the existence of an Iran nuclear weapons program, by casually asking if the respondent would support “U.S. military action against Iran to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon” even though no evidence exists that Iran has such a program.

Juan Cole, at Informed Comment, argues the PIPA poll shows that "a broad consensus across parties, wants the Iran nuclear enrichment issue dealt with through negotiations. They even want to entrust the issue to the UN security council. They think that the US should discourage Israel from attacking Iran. They are convinced that an attack would be a disaster and lead to a long-term conflict. And they hold that if Israel goes it alone and does strike Iran, the United States should remain neutral."

Read the full article at:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/03/14

[Junkdrawer]

1. So, without a synthetic terror attack....

[excuse not to write]

2. Israel doesn't need our permission to attack Iran

But if it does so, it should also find out that we don't need to give it billions of bucks every year.

[freshwest]

3. Obama has never been for it. Only the MIC and their media. BTW, it's ALL theirs...

[Behind the Aegis]

4. The only ones I see "wanting war" are Republicans and the leftist "chicken littles."

The "chicken littles" don't "want war they just want to use it and the fear of it. Also, they really need to get a fucking proof-reader. "Israli" Consdiering the source, I even wonder if that was on purpose.

[gordianot]

5. The United States and old Soviet Union came to terms.

It will not happen in the Middle East there are to many factions willing to slaughter each other. Add to that developments in the United States where the totally irrational as manifested by the GOP slate of Presidential candidates flirt with war weekly. It does not matter if it is Israel, Iran, Pakistan, Syrian, Saudi Arabian or the plethora of actors willing to do a good job of killing each other. Once started this disease will spread.