Israel Matzav

Poll: Most Iranians would give up nuke program for sanctions relief

A poll taken in Iran by Iran's state television network - and of course quickly removed from the website that posted it - found that 63% of Iranians would give up their country's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

Golnaz Esfandiari, a Radio Free Europe senior correspondent, reported that the results were quickly removed from the Iranian network’s website. Esfandiari posted screenshots and translations of the poll’s questions.

The station asked, “What method do you prefer for facing the unilateral Western sanctions against Iran?” and listed the following choices: Giving up uranium enrichment in return for the gradual removal of sanctions; closing the Strait of Hormuz; or resistance against the unilateral sanctions to preserve nuclear rights.

Twenty percent of respondents preferred closure of the strait and 18% embraced resistance against international sanctions. A clear majority sought to pull the plug on nuclear development in exchange for sanctions relief.

Saba Farzan, a German-Iranian expert and author on the Islamic Republic, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday: “For nearly a decade the Iranian regime and its apologists around the globe have created a myth that Iran’s civil society stands behind the regime’s nuclear program. Now, that myth has been fortunately buried once and forever – ironically through a poll the Iranian regime established itself.

“Journalists like myself and many other writers, scholars and intellectuals have raised over the past years several aspects that already indicated how much the Iranian civil society is in opposition to this nuclear weapons program,” Farzan wrote.

She said Iranians reject the nuclear program “because it is clandestine in method and military in nature, because while the regime enriches uranium the country is slowly going to pieces. And ultimately because nuclear energy is not something Iranians are or want to be proud of. How many more clear signs does the world community need to accept and support Iran’s civil society as a solution to the dangerous threat this illegitimate regime poses?”

After the poll was deleted from the site, the news outlet claimed the BBC had hacked its website and added phony survey numbers to the results. The BBC said this was patently false.

Imagine how much different things would be if President Hussein Obama had backed the Iranian uprising in the Summer of 2009.

Labels: Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:05 PM