The Iranian Threat

A Foreign Policy Data Presentation

By Alvin Richman

One of the most critical issues facing U.S. policymakers this year has been to find an acceptable alternative for dealing with Iran, with possibilities ranging between military action against Iran's perceived nuclear facilities on the one hand, and acquiescence to its eventual acquisition of nuclear weapons on the other. Talks between the United States and Europe in recent months have focused on negotiations with Iran and offered it a choice between receiving a package of economic and other incentives if it forgoes potential military applications of its nuclear program and sanctions if it does not.

U.S. polls on Iran have investigated Americans’ perceptions of Iran's military capabilities and intentions and the public's preferred responses, which include taking "military action now," exploring nonmilitary options first, or rejecting the use of force against Iran at any stage. Here we present about a third of the well over thirty polls fielded between January and September of this year that we have examined in order to offer a concise as well as representative overview of Americans' opinions on Iran. The available trend data, some of which are included here, show that while some opinions about Iran have changed considerably compared to previous years, there have been fewer signs of appreciable change during the course of this year.

Iran has displaced North Korea this year as the country Americans believe poses the greatest threat to the United States. Three recent polls using slightly different questions asked Americans to name our country’s main adversary, and each found Iran topping its list. The Gallup poll, for example, found nearly a third of the U.S. public naming Iran as “America’s greatest enemy today” (31 percent in February 2006—up from 14 percent a year earlier, and 8 percent a year before that). Far fewer mention North Korea or China.

Since the end of the Cold War, Americans have been more divided and less steadfast about which country most endangers the United States. According to various polls conducted by ABC News, the Pew Research Center, and Fox News, no more than one-third have been in agreement in recent years about the country posing the greatest threat—China in 2001, Iraq in 2003, North Korea in 2005, and now Iran in 2006. In contrast, ABC News in 1981 reported more than two-thirds of Americans (72 percent) naming the Soviet Union as our greatest threat.

Although widely regarded as America’s main adversary, no more than a fourth of the public believes Iran presents an immediate threat to the United States. The most recent survey on the immediacy of Iran’s threat found 24 percent of registered voters viewing that country as a “clear and present danger” to the United States, compared to two-thirds who saw it as either a medium-term or long-term threat.

According to an April 2006 poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), 84  percent of Americans believed the Iranian government was trying to develop nuclear weapons. What worries most Americans, as several other polls report below, is that Iran is building nuclear weapons with the intent of providing them to terrorist organizations, which could in turn use them against the United States or its allies. Fewer believe Iran would employ these weapons directly against Israel or against the United States.