Polls: Half Of Americans Support Attacking Iran

Obama uses executive order to impose harsh sanctions on Iranian Central Bank

 

 

Two new polls ominously highlight that almost half of all Americans are willing to go along with attacking Iran in order to prevent the country from developing nuclear weapons.

In a poll conducted by The Hill, forty-nine percent said military force should be used against Iran, with Sixty-two percent of likely voters adding that they were ‘somewhat’ or ‘very concerned’ about Iran attacking the United States in a terrorist event.

The poll found that just 31 percent did not approve of using military force, while 20 percent were undecided.

The same amount of voters also revealed that they are opposed to cuts in military spending in order to reduce the federal deficit and work toward balancing the budget. 40 percent said they felt reductions in military spending were acceptable.

In a separate Rasmussen poll, forty-eight percent of voters said that the U.S. should help Israel if it decides to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The majority also said they believe an Israeli attack on Iran is likely to happen within the next year, with fifty percent believing it is ‘very likely’ that Iran will develop a nuclear weapon in the near future.

On Monday, president Obama announced stricter sanctions on Iran via an executive order. Obama stated that the government was freezing all Iranian government assets held or traded in the U.S., directly targeting Iran’s central bank.

“I have determined that additional sanctions are warranted, particularly in light of the deceptive practices of the Central Bank of Iran and other Iranian banks to conceal transactions of sanctioned parties, the deficiencies in Iran’s anti-money laundering regime and the weaknesses in its implementation, and the continuing and unacceptable risk posed to the international financial system by Iran’s activities,” Obama said in a letter to Congress.

“We’re not going to take options off the table. And I’ve been very clear, we’re going to do everything we can to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and creating a nuclear arms race in a volatile region,” Obama said.

“I think we have a very good estimate of when they could potentially achieve breakout capacity, what stage they’re at in terms of processing uranium,” he added. 

Obama also said that the U.S. and Israel were “in lockstep” in their policy towards Iran, but that he believed Israel has not made a decision on whether or not to attack Iran.

That statement directly contradicts Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s statement last week that he expected Israel to strike Iran in April, May or June.

Last week Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for a stop to “chatter” among government and military personnel regarding the likelihood of an impending attack.

Intelligence gathering website Debkafile notes:

“In Israel, no knowledgeable source any longer doubts that the Netanyahu government has already reached a decision. It was instantly assumed that Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, whose appointment as the next Israeli Air Force commander was announced Sunday, would lead the coming operation against Iran.”

The Iranian government has responded by “publishing a paper which suggested for the first time that Iran would not wait to be attacked but was preparing pre-emptive action of its own against Israel.” The Debkafile report states.

“The paper spoke of a surprise missile offensive targeting Israel’s military installations.” In addition, Ahmed Tavakoli, head of the Iranian Parliament’s research center, echoed the paper’s sentiments, calling for a missile confrontation with Israel before the year’s end.

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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

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