What Does the Iranian Public Really Think?

On February 3, 2010, New America welcomed a group of panelists to discuss the Iranian public opinion on its current leaders and government.

Pollster Steven Kull provided a series of polls taken in Iran, through Tehran University and phone polls, to illustrate the opinions of the Iranian public. According to his findings, the Iranian public does not view either Ahmadinejad or the government as illegitimate. Before the election, 64% of the public said they had high confidence in Ahmadinejad. After the election, in September 2009, a poll showed that 54% of the public was very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with the results of the election. John Cohen, however, brought up several points that could detract from Kull’s arguments. He pointed out that because phone polls were conducted only through land lines, cell phone users were not canvassed; consequently, an entire demographic was left out of the polls. He also observed that many Iranians, approximately over 20%, simply refused to answer the questions. Cohen argued that it was possible that the results of the polls were highly skewed. Other panelists held very different views. Flynt Leverett declared that Iran was not in danger of collapse, a view supported by Kull’s research. According to Leverett, the Green Movement is very small and concentrated primarily in Northern Tehran. The U.S. conviction that Iranian government is about to fall apart, he declared, is analogous to the U.S.’s previous belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Leverett argued that rather than make assumptions about Iranian public opinion and create policy based on faulty theories, the U.S. government should continue to engage Iran in negotiations.

Panelist Hooman Majd disagreed with both Kull’s research and with Leverett’s arguments. He stated that the Tehran polls should be thrown out entirely, considering the government’s power over the university’s publications. Taking a cultural stance, Majd also argued that Iranians, as a population, have traditionally distrusted polls, particularly foreign polls, and have frequently lied when asked questions under these circumstances. A poll that evaluates the comfort or discomfort of a polled person and uses a less foreign pollster is critical to obtaining a more accurate representation of Iranian public opinion.

Finally, Barbara Slavin also disagreed with Kull and Leverett. According to her research, the Green Movement is a large civil rights movement that flourishes well beyond Tehran, into the countryside of Iran. The Green Movement should not be ignored or considered a negligible part of Iranian public opinion. Rather, Slavin argued, the success of the Green Movement is critical to U.S.-Iranian relations as the current Iranian administration seems completely unwilling to make compromises to the United States.

-Kalie Pierce, Research Intern with the American Strategy Program

Participants