Polling extremists: According to a recent Reader’s Digest/Zogby poll, not all Iranians are extremist nutjobs who don’t believe that Israel exists or that the U.S. is out to bomb them off the face of the earth.
Indeed, 41 percent of Iranians polled said reforming their national economy to operate more efficiently is more important than nuclear capability. Only, 27 percent said the country’s top priority should be to develop nuclear weapons, while a full 23 percent professed to believe that the top goal for their government should be to expand its citizens’ freedoms.
Using Pensito Math, I have taken the liberty of extrapolating these meaningless percentages into real numbers by calculating what they would mean in a country with a population of 8 million. Thus, applying Pensito Math, 27. 9 million would be in favor of reforming the economy and 15 million would support expanded freedoms, while 18.4 million extremists would favor becoming a nuclear threat to the world.
More than half of Iranians polled (56 percent/38 million) said they believe their country should lead the region “diplomatically and militarily,” but only 12 percent (8.2 million) took the more moderate path and said Iran should not be the dominant regional power. Almost a third of respondents (31 percent/21 million) are reasonable, and want Iran to become more secular and liberal. On the other hand, 36 percent (24.5 million) want the country to be a nation of radical religious extremists.
Sadly, only 9 percent of Iranians polled (6.1 million) said that Israel was a legitimate state and should be allowed to exist, while 67 percent (45.6 million) said, “Israel, what Israel?”
Almost two-thirds of Iranians cling to the delusion that they don’t believe that Iran and the U.S. will go to war in the next decade.
A majority held the extreme view that they would be willing to suffer economically if that were the price the country had to pay to develop its nuclear program. A quarter (17 million) took the extremist view and said they would blame the U.S. if the United Nations imposed nuclear-related sanctions, although nearly 40 percent (27.2 million) said they were not sure whom to blame. Only one in six (10.2 million) would rightfully blame the Iranian government for being a bunch of unreasonable hard-headed extremists. If Iran were to develop nuclear weapons — not that they are, of course — a foolish 25 percent (17 million) said it would make the Middle East a safer place, but a more sensible 35 percent (23.8 million) disagreed.
When it came to their view of the United States, older Iranians were more likely to admire the American people and society than younger Iranians, no doubt remembering the kindness the U.S. showed to the late Shah of Iran when he was dying of cancer and the sensitive media coverage of the death and burial of the Ayatollah Khomeni.
Disproving the notion that access to information liberalizes a culture, among Iranians with Internet access, 41 percent (27.9 million) said they wanted a more religious culture, compared to a nonradical minority of 33 percent (22.4 million) who said they wanted a more secular society. Ironically, Iranians with access to the Internet or satellite TV were more likely to identify the U.S. as the country they admire the most and less likely to pick the U.S. government as the one they admire the least — 34 percent (23.1 million) Iranians without Internet access chose the United States as least admired, compared with 18 percent (12.2 million) Iranians with Internet access.
