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.
Absolutely no surpise in this at all.
The only surprise is that people think otherwise.
Mamoud Ahmedinejad in Shanghai in June, attending SCO summit:
Ummmmm.....this just in.......who cares what the muslim world thinks??????
There's also some probability that other European countries (besides Turkey) and Latin American nations have more than 20% of their populations for an iran with nuclear weapons. The Turkey one seems sort of a stretch, twenty percent is a large minority, but still a minority.
Well no duh.
I guess from this pic females/blondes only in the bedroom??
...well this will help me sleep better at night....
DITTO.
We Crusaders got more nukes than you Muzzies.
Well that's death wish if I've ever seen one.
Poll them if they think the west should surrender to Islam. You'll get the same answer.
And here's our message to the Muslim world...
Would you support a pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities?
Count me here.
I only wish we were as focused on keeping nukes out of the hands of the Pakistanis (in the late 90s) as we currently are in keeping nukes away from the Iranians.
The terrorists hadn't really kicked in yet, so the scare level to the rest of the world was less. The development of nukes in India and Pakistan were to offset each other, power-wise. They got them because of the emnity between their two nations, not as a threat against other nations of the world. So, they are peceived as less of a threat, more of a localized threat between two countries. Whereas, the Iranians would use their nuclear power against anyone or everyone, depending on whim. In particular, against Israel. All of western Europe would be under threat from Iran. This is what makes them so dangerous. Pakistan is more like a nagging nuke toothache, whereas Iran is a festering sore, with pus already starting to ooze out. Much more danger from infection.
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