(Source: Gallup)
A few months ago, Netanyahu’s presentation to the United Nations of a fourth-grader’s drawing dramatizing Iran’s imminent nuclear weapons capability drew gales of laughter. But maybe it was successful after all.
A Gallup poll taken this month shows that 99% of Americans agree that Iran’s development of nuclear weapons is a critical or important threat to US interests over the next decade (83% for critical, 16% for important). Of course, Netanyahu had a lot of help. About 99% of Congress appears to be with him, US mainstream media has toed the line, and even uber-liberal Ben Affleck chimed in with a super popular movie depicting Iranians collectively as a medieval lunatic population time-warped to the present. The imposition of crippling sanctions that have made 75 million Iranians miserable is considered the soft alternative approach.
Evidence that Iran is complying with the NPT and has no nuclear weapons program is swept aside as propaganda. Arguments that a nuclear-armed Iran could be “contained,” that is, deterred from committing national suicide by striking far more advanced countries that have hundreds of nukes pointed back at Tehran, are disparaged as dangerously naïve. It’s tough to get 99% of Americans to agree on anything, but if Obama wants to take advantage of this consensus and pre-emptively strike against a foe that presents such a “critical danger” to US interests, it won’t be public sentiment that stands in his way. Hopefully there are other constraints. Who’s laughing now?
New York is likely to be hit by a storm bigger than Sandy within 10 years.
Iran can’t flood the subway system but climate change can.
and “the economic power of china”. LOL. Gallup should have asked ” do you think the US should sell dollar bonds to China or let the bond market collapse “
“Settler policy imperils Israel’s foundations”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/689d27cc-7a98-11e2-9cc2-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2LdrrXM8C
Sigh. Development a nuclear weapon by a state that’s not developing nuclear weapons: huge threat. War between two nuclear powers (India and Pakistan): not a big deal.
What this shows, of course, is that the vast majority of Americans (and really people everywhere) don’t give a damn about foreign policy; they care about issues closer to home that are easier for them to relate to and that impact them more directly.
Obama wouldn’t have any trouble getting public support for a “surgical strike” against Iran’s nuclear sites. It seems the only real oppisition he has is from the people in the military who understand that bombing Iran’s nuclear sites could easily lead to a wider war. Obama gives me the impression that he’s opposed to military aggression against Iran but he’s shown us in the past that his convictions have as much foundation as a plastic sack in the wind.
The steady stream of Iranian propaganda in cinema and television is successful.
Recall this piece of propaganda from CBS on Ahmadinejad.
https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2008/09/report-60-minutes-cut-ahmadinejads-statement-solution-is-democracy-in-israelpalestine.html