A shift in Arab views of Iran
LA Times / Shibley Telhami
13-Aug-2010 (one comment)

President Obama may have scored a diplomatic win by securing international support for biting sanctions against Iran, but Arab public opinion is moving in a different direction. Polling conducted last month by Zogby and the University of Maryland in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates suggests that views in the region are shifting toward a positive perception of Iran's nuclear program.

These views present problems for Washington, which has counted on Arabs seeing Iran as a threat — maybe even a bigger one than Israel. So why is Arab public opinion toward Iran shifting?

According to our polling, a majority of Arabs do not believe Iran's claim that it is merely pursuing a peaceful nuclear program. But an overwhelming majority believe that Iran has the right to develop nuclear weapons and should not be pressured by the international community to curtail its program. Even more telling, a majority of those polled this year say that if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons, the outcome would be positive for the Middle East. In 2009, only 29% of respondents viewed that as a positive.

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AMIR1973

The "Arab street" is damaged goods

by AMIR1973 on Fri Aug 13, 2010 09:18 PM PDT

The so-called "Arab street" blows with the wind. One day, they support Saddam and chant "With spirit, with blood, we shall sacrifice ourselves for you, O Saddam" (but it could just as easily be Bashar Asad or Qaddafi or whomever, depending on the day of the week). Do they even know or care that Saddam killed many hundreds of thousands of Arabs and other Muslims? The next day they will support the IRI that fought the same Saddam they were chanting for the day before. The next day they will cheer that the Twin Towers in NYC have been destroyed and thousands of Americans have been killed. The only thing they know is "Death to America" and "Death to Israel". Unless they don't happen to like some cartoons. In which case, there will be deadly riots in Muslim countries and they will set the Danish embassy on fire (over a bunch of cartoons). When the Arabs own leaders, whether in Syria, Sudan, Egypt, Jordan or Libya, don't care or listen to their people, why should non-Arabs?


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