Polls: Iranians support Ahmadinejad and their nuclear program

A reader was kind enough to send me this:

 

I don't know if you are already aware but 2 new Iran surveys have been published on the subject of the nuclear program and also the June election. Both appear to vindicate your assessment. They were conducted by the World Public Opinion polling agency in the United States.

 

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/

 

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/sep09/IranNuc_Sep09_quaire.pdf

 

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/sep09/IranUS_Sep09_quaire.pdf

Some of they key points:

Regarding Iran’s nuclear program, please tell me which of the following courses of action you prefer for Iran:

To develop both atomic bombs

and nuclear power.................................................38%

To only develop nuclear power..............................55

To have no nuclear programs...................................3

Don’t know ..............................................................3

Refused ....................................................................1

 

And when asked about their confidence in their President, this is what the results were:

How about the President?

A lot of confidence................................................ 64%

Some confidence....................................................21

Not much confidence ...............................................5

No confidence at all .................................................6

Don’t know ..............................................................2

Refused ....................................................................2

Comments

[mike honcho]

Trust me I'm Iranian,this so called green movement is funded by US and Britain,heck MKO admits involvement.Yeah the rich tehrani's don't like Ahmadinejad because he is taxing them more and giving more money to the poor and every country in the world throughout history rich people don't like this.I'm sure there is alot of americans wish there govt did this.These rich represent less then 1% and Iran is 70 million plus population even if 5 million protest what about the other 65 million,thats not democracy

[Korosh]

It is very naive to have fair and balance poll in what has became a fascist military dictatorship in Iran. Do you really expect people to go on the record and disagree with the regime on their everyday tapped phones to signed their own death verdict? Iranians may be brave to come out to the street and protest against the regime, but they are not stupid and they know that the regime agent does use these measures to track down on the opposition.

[Other polls, including face-to-face polls, have reached the same results. Your conclusion that Iran is a "fascist military dictatorship" is apparently not widely shared.

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/iran120408.html
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/527.php
]

[cyrus]

trust me, i am an Iranian, been there and know the situation and what the iranian people have in their mind more than any non-iranian
it blew my mind when i read the polling results, it's total non-sense
then I called Steven Kull (the WPO director) asked him how they conducted the polling and he claimed that they hired a third party contractor out of Europe to conduct the polling and it was done using a dialing system calling select numbers (didn't specify how & who slected the numbers and were they orginated from, Iranian gov gave them or ..)
idon't wanna accuse them of anything, but the Iranian gov has thousands of powerful agents, spies, imtel contractors, etc around the world, something they can't do, they have others from other countries do for them & they pay with billion$$ of oil 7 other resources revenue. they'd pay the polling agency out of europe to fabricate results

also in fact, any average Iranian knows that all international calls to Iran are monitored and recorded by the intel ministary and also know that the regime some times comes up with such tricks to detect who is opposing the government
Steven indicated that over 65% of people refused to comment and i'd say 95% percent because they were scared to comment about their disagrement with the regime.
another thing is that if you ask Iranians privately if they prefer regime change & a secular demeocratic non-Islamic government or reform/conservation of current system, over 85% would say the prefer regime change and the rest 3% would agree with either reform or conservation & the 12% of the rest would prefer no revolution because not sure how soon things will be sattled

[Pirouz]

Funny, Cyrus. That's the same reaction toward Ahmadinejad one would expect from a demonstrating member of the Green movement!

[Really? I don't get it. Would they express support for Ahmadinejad?]

[Mark Pyruz]

You know, Cyrus, these poll results remind me of a period of American history I lived through- the late 1960's, early '70's. The civil rights and antiwar protests were regular events. There were violent police crackdowns, massive demonstrations, even a number shot and killed by law enforcement. The most radical of the demonstrators were calling for revolution. I was growing up in the San Francisco area, and saw this kind of thing almost daily.

And during that time, there was an American politician that said these people did not represent America. He declared that there was a "silent majority" that rejected this kind of thing, were even repulsed by it. And he was proven right. He was elected President. And during the height of the demonstrations, he was actually reelected by a substantial landslide.

So it appears there may possibly be an Iranian "silent majority".

[uugh! dont remind me of nixon!]