I don't read polls for a living, and certainly don't want to
compete with those who do. But I was intrigued by a new CNN poll that
found a majority of Americans in favor of Congress rejecting the recently
negotiated nuclear deal with Iran.
To be sure this
is one poll; and others have reached very different
conclusions. But regardless of whether you're for, against or somewhere in
between, the Iran deal is a historic enterprise. Why then would Americans want
to be skeptical or oppose it?
Here are some
possibilities:
The agreement is too complicated
I doubt that many folks have read the
100 plus page text or the five detailed annexes, let alone followed the tick
tock over the classified side agreements. The point is that the deal -- or
what's in the four corners of the accord -- is complicated and can test even
those who follow the issue closely. Interestingly, those polls that ask more
detailed questions, such as did you know there was intrusive monitoring or snap
back sanctions to punish Iranians, should they cheat, seem to get more positive reactions.
There's also the matter of how the Obama administration is
selling the deal. If the most effective talking point is that there's no
alternative to this agreement, that's hardly the most compelling way to sell
it, particularly with a party that many Americans don't trust or believe will uphold
their end of the bargain.
This isn't a peace treaty
And that gets to the question of the
public's skepticism generally about Iran and whether or not Iran would uphold
its end of the agreement. An earlier CNN poll, in June, found a full two-thirds
of those polled skeptical that an agreement could be reached that would prevent
Iran from getting a nuke. And post-agreement skepticism and mistrust remains
high. Both Pew and Washington
Post/ABC polls found
majorities skeptical that Iran could be trusted to deliver on their commitments
-- and that the agreement would actually work.
Such skepticism
is hardly surprising, partly because it's based on negative attitudes toward
Iran that have been building since the 1979 revolution and hostage crisis. A Gallup poll
earlier this year found
only 11% of Americans surveyed had a favorable opinion of Iran -- the lowest
percentage of 22 countries, including Syrian, Russia and North Korea.
Indeed, if the
Iran story were filled with heroic acts of peacemaking -- with pictures to
highlight historic breakthroughs and handshakes, such as the Egyptian-Israeli
peace treaty -- there might be a much more uniformly positive reaction. But
President Obama is -- fairly or not -- a polarizing figure. And the Iranian
mullahs are hardly poster children for pro-American sensibilities.
Don't like Obama, don't like the Iran deal
Here's a shocker for you: The partisan
reaction to the agreement is sharp. The CNN poll found 66% of Republicans and
55% of independents saying Congress ought to reject it, compared with 61% of
Democrats saying the opposite. The reality is the easiest way to determine
where someone stands on the Iran deal is where they stand on the President.
Indeed, the groups that tended to agree with the accord were almost identical
to those that on balance liked the job Obama has been doing as president.
"The New York Times" reported that "black, Democratic, liberal
and younger voters were generally for the deal, while white, Republican,
conservative and older voters were more likely to be opposed." It
concluded that 82% of the variation in support for the Iran deal in 18
subgroups can be understood just by knowing what Obama's job approval rating
was in each group.
Does public opinion matter?
With Congress about to go into recess
and lawmakers returning to home districts, you might think that representatives
and senators based on some of the polls will face a tsunami of negative
reaction about the deal. And they well might. Even though public opinion on the
deal appears fluid, the partisan gap on the issue seems destined to produce an
intense Republican vs. Democrats battle. If the administration has the votes to
sustain a presidential veto, the agreement will go through. And having not
taken Congress' role all that seriously in the Iranian nuclear diplomacy, the
administration isn't likely to be constrained by a few public opinion polls.
At the end of
the day, perhaps the most painful reality is that on an issue so consequential
to U.S. foreign policy, there is likely to be no real political consensus. But
then again, give the current state of our politics, why should anyone be
surprised by that?
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