Tehran, Feb 23, IRNA - Half as many Americans view Iran as the United States? greatest enemy today as did two years ago, the US-based Gallup institute has recently reported.
According to Gallup China now edges out Iran and North Korea atop the list.

Gallup is a research-based, global performance-management consulting company, famous for its public opinion polls conducted in the United States and other countries.

Gallup first asked this open-ended question in 2001, and opinions have shifted over that time.

In the 2001 survey -- 10 years after the Persian Gulf War but before the 2003 Iraq war began -- Americans named Iraq as the greatest US enemy by a large margin.

By 2005, with the US nearly two years into the Iraq war, Iraq and North Korea tied as the greatest enemy, with 22% mentioning each country. The next year, Iran surged to the top of the list, with 31% of all mentions, and it remained the most often cited enemy until this year.

?The drop in mentions of Iran as the greatest enemy in this year?s poll has been accompanied by increases in the percentages mentioning North Korea (from 10% in 2012 to 16%), Russia (from 2% to 9%), and Syria (from less than 1% to 3%). The percentage mentioning China, however, has stayed virtually the same. Thus, China now tops the list mainly because Americans? views on the nation?s enemies are more divided among several countries rather than focused on one dominant country, as in recent years,? Gallup added.

Referring to Iran?s interim nuclear agreement with the Group 5+1 in November 2013, Gallup said, ?That agreement may be the main reason the American public is taking a less antagonistic view of Iran.?

It added, ?Americans are less likely to regard Iran as the greatest U.S. enemy.?

?Older Americans and Republicans are a bit more likely than younger Americans and Democrats to name Iran as the top enemy. In turn, younger Americans and Democrats more commonly view North Korea as the No.1 enemy.?

Americans may regard China?s emerging economic power to be as threatening, if not more so, than the potential military threats from Iran and North Korea, Gallup added.

The survey was conducted through random telephone interviews with some 1,023 adults aged 18 and older.

The poll was conducted Feb. 6-9, 2014.

By IRNA

 

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