82CardsGrad

Poll: Iranians want democracy, nuclear inspections


(CNN) -- Most Iranians support nuclear inspections, a democratic government and normal relations with the United States, a poll by a U.S.-based organization has found.

Terror Free Tomorrow found 80 percent of Iranians support full inspections and a guarantee not to develop nuclear weapons in return for aid from other countries.
Slightly more than half, however, said they still favor the development of nuclear weapons and think the country would be safer with them. Developing the weapons is considered a "very important" priority for just 29 percent of those polled.

But when presented with an option to give up nuclear weapons development in return for outside aid, only 17 percent still supported nuclear weapons development.
The economy is more important to Iranians than developing nuclear weapons. Eighty-eight percent said they want economic improvement to be the government's top priority.
The poll also found 56 percent think President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has failed to keep his campaign promise to "put oil money on the table of the people themselves."

Additionally, 61 percent of those interviewed "were willing to tell our pollsters over the phone that they oppose the current Iranian system of government, where the Supreme Leader rules according to religious principles and cannot be chosen or replaced by direct vote of the people."
Instead, 79 percent support a democratic system in which leaders are elected through free, direct elections.
And while nearly two-thirds support financial assistance for opposition groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, 55 percent of Iranians support recognizing Israel and Palestine as independent states in exchange for normal relations with the United States.
Terror Free Tomorrow, which has prominent Democrats and Republicans on its advisory board, conducted interviews in Farsi with 1,000 Iranians by telephone last month. The sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
"Face-to-face interviewing in Iran can be difficult for interviewers who risk possible prosecution and imprisonment. The last poll to ask similar controversial questions was conducted in September 2002 by Abbas Abdi inside Iran, who was imprisoned as a result," Terror Free Tomorrow said in its report on the poll.
The group said its interviews, about evenly split between men and women, were "proportionally distributed according to the population covering all 30 provinces of Iran."

The group's advisory board includes Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, and the co-chairs of the 9-11 commission, Lee Hamilton, a Democrat, and Tom Kean, a Republican. The group says it was also chosen as a participant in the 2006 Clinton Global Initiative.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/...oll/index.html

devilalum

This cracks me up. It reminds me of this movie from the 60's where some little third world country declares war against the US knowing that after they lose in a couple of days the United States will send them tons of economic aid to help them "recover."

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82CardsGrad

By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer 46 minutes ago



WASHINGTON - The United States is ready to hold new direct talks with Iran on the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, the State Department said Tuesday. The Bush administration accused Tehran of supporting Shiite insurgents there.
"We think that given the situation in Iraq and given Iran's continued behavior that is leading to further instability in Iraq, that it would be appropriate to have another face-to-face meeting to directly convey to the Iranian authorities that if they wish to see a more stable, secure, peaceful Iraq, which is what they have said they would like to see, that they need to change their behavior," spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.
"They need to stop supporting sectarian militias that are exacerbating sectarian tensions, they need to stop supporting EFP networks that pose a direct threat to our troops," he said, referring to Explosively Formed Penetrators, devices crafted to penetrate armored vehicles that Washington claims are being sent to insurgents by Iran.

"It is important to directly convey to the Iranian government the importance of their changing their behavior, not only for the safety of our troops, but also for the future of Iraq," McCormack said.

He said a date for the talks had yet to be arranged but suggested that discussions were under way on setting a time for the meeting, which would be the first between the two arch-foes since late May when U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, met Iranian officials in Baghdad.
That May 28 meeting marked a break in a 27-year diplomatic freeze and was expected to have been followed within a month by a second encounter. But since then, bitterness has mounted as U.S. officials have stepped up allegations of Iranian involvement in the Iraq insurgency.
Tensions have also risen over Tehran's detention of four Iranian-American scholars and activists charged with endangering national security. The U.S. has demanded their release, saying the charges against them are false.

At the same time, Iran has called for the release of five Iranians detained in Iraq, whom the United States has said are the operations chief and other members of Iran s elite Quds Force, which is accused of arming and training Iraqi militants. Iran says the five are diplomats in Iraq with permission of the government.

Until Tuesday the United States had resisted another round of talks despite entreaties from the Iraqi government and Iranian hints at their willingness to sit down.

Earlier Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran was willing to hold a second round of talks with the United States over stabilizing Iraq in the near future if Washington officially asks for one.
"We look positively at holding a second round of talks. There exists a possibility to hold such talks in the near future," Mottaki told a news conference in Tehran. However, he said the U.S. had not yet made such a request through official channels.
That means through the Swiss Embassy in Tehran — which looks after U.S. interests in Iran in the absence of diplomatic relations. McCormack declined to discuss specifics of how the arrangements were being made.
The Iraqi government, which is backed by the U.S. but closely allied to Iran, has been trying to get the two sides together, hoping some cooperation will reduce violence in the wartorn country.

Divide Et Impera

Good.