Posted on 06/17/2006 8:57:30 PM PDT by familyop
WASHINGTON, June 15 (UPI) -- The vast majority of Iran's Turkish, Saudi and Pakistani neighbors want the United States to accept a nuclear Iran, according to a new poll of the Muslim world.
Saudi Arabia and other governments in the region are officially opposed to a nuclear-armed Iran, but two-thirds of Pakistanis, one-third of Saudis and more than one-fifth of Turks support the idea, shows a series of polls released Wednesday by Terror Free Tomorrow, a non-profit and non-partisan organization. Large numbers of people surveyed were undecided, sponsors said.
A plurality of people from the countries polled, including a two-thirds majority in Pakistan, favor the United States and other countries accepting a nuclear Iran if diplomatic efforts to halt Tehran's program fail instead of resorting to military strikes.
"Popular opinion in the region seems to defy conventional wisdom. It may be unprecedented for people of different countries to be willing to accept nuclear weapons by a neighboring nation," Ken Ballen, president of Terror Free Tomorrow, wrote in the report's executive summary.
The report warned that "despite a deep historical enmity between Iran's Persian Shiite population and its ethnically diverse Arab, Turkish and Pakistani Sunni neighbors," their acceptance of nuclear-armed Iran "shows that the radical Islamist propaganda which portrays the West as the enemy of Islam is gaining dangerous ground."
Leading Western governments contend Iran is secretly and illegally developing nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran rejects.
The polls also revealed that despite historically high levels of anti-Americanism, U.S. humanitarian assistance results in a more favorable view of the country abroad.
In Pakistan, 75 percent of Pakistanis are more favorable towards the United States due to American earthquake relief.
Historically I didn't care what the mohammedans thought, however given that the oil dollars they use to fund their terrorism and allow them to purchase nuclear technology that can be used to intimidate and force change to their way of thinking, does give me pause....especially since the West is the primary source of their petrodollars.
It's like a neighborhood bully, nobody cares in the other neighborhoods, until he ends up in yours. Question; OK. but are we going to do something about it...before it's too late?
This is only a majority in one country, and a minority in two other countries. Yet the author claims, "Muslim world supports Iran nukes". The author must have worked at the Broward County elections office.
Umm,sorry but your theory of "India-Pak" equality has little basis in reality.India decided to build nukes way back in the 1960s due to China developing the same & Pakistan decided on that a decade later,WITH CHINESE ASSISTANCE.And who were the main forces bankrolling (an impoverished) Pakistan's attempts to nuclearise????The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia & Libya.Pakistan has excellent political & military ties with both these nations & has been accused of proliferating to them.Anything starting to make sense??????
So we all agree Iran should be nuked.
"Anything starting to make sense??????"
Yes, but Pakistan wanted nukes because India had them. And in current times (not back when nukes were first developed, India and Pakistan use their nukes as threats against each other, and that is why I say it is localized between those two countries, with no threats on either of their parts to use them against countries other than each others. Starting to make sense?
Read up on Pakistan's ties with Saudi Arabia & it's plans on building/buying nukes.Plenty of it on Freerep. alone.That widens the scheme.
If Saudi Arabia or even Iran gets into a soup with Israel,well the Pakis & their nukes get involved.
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