The London-based YouGov polling organization last month surveyed Europeans in Britain, Germany and Denmark, plus Americans and a sampling of Arabs from different Middle Easter countries.
The poll found that half the Arabs, two-thirds of the Americans and three-quarters of the Europeans believe Iran is probably seeking atomic weapons.
The percentages were 53 percent in the Middle East, 64 percent in the United States, 70 percent in Britain, 74 percent in Germany and 76 percent in Denmark.
That was a dramatic shift in public opinion in recent years and shows why European governments have shifted in just the last three months from mere token sanctions to very harsh and puntive sanctions on Iran.
Some speculate that President Ahmadi-nejad’s repeated remarks doubting the truth of the Holocaust may have turned heads in Europe that previously did not object to mere anti-Americanism.
The poll also showed that almost half of Americans are now willing to bomb Iran to halt its nuclear enrichment.
Some 44 percent of Americans supported bombing. Solid majorities of Arabs, Germans and Britons opposed bombing; in fact, even more Germans than Arabs opposed bombing.
But the Danes were fairly close to the Americans with 37 percent supporting bombing. And 27 percent of Danes would support a ground invasion of Iran, something only 22 percent of the Americans polled supported.
And when it comes to sanctions, the Europeans, who once complained bitterly about the American resort to sanctions, are now more supportive of the sanctions noose than Americans.
Seventy percent of Americans said they supported increasing economic sanctions on Iran while 70 percent of Britons, and 74 percent of Germans and Danes backed tighter sanctions.
The normally staid Danes were notably more supportive of all kinds of harsher action against Iran than their German and British neighbors. That may be a result of the angry tiff Denmark had a few years ago with the Middle East, including a very vocal Iran, when a Danish newspaper printed cartoons mocking the Prophet and Iran demanded the cartoonists be jauled.
