January 31-2014
A slight majority of Americans support the new agreement with Iran on its nuclear program, but fewer believe it will keep the Islamic Republic from actually building a nuclear bomb.
Those were the results of a new Associated Press-GfK poll conducted January 17-21, just as the interim agreement took effect January 20.
The poll found that 60 percent of American adults approve of the six-month agreement. But only 47 percent thought it likely to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
“From a diplomatic standpoint, it would be great to be able to negotiate and come up with a solution that would eliminate the chance for nuclear weapons for Iran,” respondent Lance Hughey, 40, a lawyer from LaCrosse, Wisconsin, said Monday. However, “Iran is a difficult country to trust,” said Hughey, who identified himself as an independent voter with slightly Republican leanings.
“And the leadership that we see out of DC, the way things have been conducted with Syria,… I don’t believe [the president] has the leadership skills to deal with Iran.”
The poll found that 42 percent approve of how Obama is dealing with Iran—about the same as the 44 percent in December. Fewer strongly approve of his performance—25 percent now compared with 30 percent in December.
The AP-GfK Poll was conducted using KnowledgePanel, GfK’s probability-based online panel. It involved online interviews with 1,060 adults. The survey has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points for all respondents. Those respondents who did not have Internet access before joining the panel were provided it for free.
