Chart: Fewer And Fewer Americans See Iran As The US's Greatest Enemy
Updated by Max Fisher on March 3, 2015, 10:10 a.m. ET
This chart shows a crucial fact for understanding why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is taking such a big risk with speech to Congress on Tuesday, when he will oppose President Obama's effort to reach a nuclear deal with Iran.
Americans, according to Gallup, just don't think Iran is as much of a threat as they used to. Just a few years ago, in 2011, 25 percent of Americans called Iran "the United States' greatest enemy today." In 2012, it was 32 percent. Now, it's nine percent. Iran does not scare Americans like it used to.
That means the American public, which is in part who Netanyahu is trying to reach with his case that the world cannot trust Iran with a nuclear deal, is much less sympathetic to Netanyahu's anti-Iran hawkishness than they would have been a couple of years ago.
This is just one of several interesting findings in the latest results from Gallup's poll asking Americans to name the one country that is the US's greatest threat today. Respondents were not given a list of countries to choose from, but rather allowed to pick any country they wished. Still, the answers have tended to cluster around the four listed above: Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.
The decline in US fear of Iran probably reflects a few factors. The 2013 election of moderate President Hassan Rouhani, to replace anti-American hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sent the message that Tehran was willing to compromise and perhaps take a softer line. Rouhani's September 2013 phone call with Obama further set Rouhani, rightly or wrongly, as the friendlier face of Iran.
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http://www.vox.com/2015/3/3/8135255/enemies-iran-russia
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