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What Do Iran’s People Think?

By Heshmat Alavi

FORBS, FEB 8, 2018 – Following continuing reports of unrest in Iran, a recent opinion poll claims only 4.9 percent of the Iranian people seek regime change. Interesting is the fact that figures accused of having close relations with Tehran and Iran’s state-run media launched an orchestrated campaign to publicize this so-called survey.
What needs understanding is first the nature of this opinion poll, conducted merely through phone calls from Farsi speaking strangers, as if the Iranian people would trust such calls and express their true beliefs about the oppressive regime. Second, the background of those who claim to have gathered this information is worth a deeper look.
Why would one want to conduct a poll at a time when the state is rocked by protests across the board and slogans are targeting the ruling regime’s very existence? Unless those initiating the polls intend to depict a result contrary to public opinion, i.e., seeking to portray a rock-solid regime enjoying significant popularity.
Iran’s regime is in such desperate need to claim popular support that poll organizers don’t even take the time to portray their numbers as even slightly acceptable, making astonishing claims such as:
– Only 8.8 percent of the people believe Iran should decrease its ballistic missile program budget
– Only 11.3 percent believe the government is too involved in their personal lives
– Only 17.2 percent believe Iran’s role in Syria and Iraq is not in the country’s interests
– Only 21.5 percent believe Iran should decrease its Syria/Iraq budgets
– Only 21.7 percent believe the government should not impose seriously Islamic laws

This comes at a time that the majority of Iran’s populace lives in poverty, with disturbing images from inside the country showing the homeless living in graves, and others searching the trash for food or something to sell. People are also selling their kidneys and other body parts to help make ends meet. Moreover, one of the most prevalent chants by the protesters nationwide was, “Let go of Syria, think of us” and “We don’t want an Islamic Republic.”
A Voice of America Farsi TV report covering a similar poll in the past raised such a stir among the Iranian-American community that VOA Farsi removed it from its website.
This latest poll was prepared by Ebrahim Mohseni, a Research Associate at Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM), a Lecturer on the Faculty of World Studies at the University of Tehran, and a Senior Analyst at the University of Tehran Center for Public Opinion Research.
Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council, provided the publicity campaign support.
Mohseni is described as procuring “fabricated polls” and his “connection with the University of Maryland also helps him disguise the real paymaster of his fabricated polls, i.e. the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Parsi is also labelled as an “Iran apologist” and his disturbing views about the U.S. are quite interesting, to say the least.
This poll, naturally, received wide coverage by Iranian media linked to the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), such as the Fars news agency, and Khorasan daily.

 

 

 Khorasan daily; Supporting the system, criticizing economic situation

 Khorasan daily; Supporting the system, criticizing economic situation.

 

This organized “fabricated polls” effort and publishing in the U.S. dates back to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency (2005-2013), alongside Iran’s claim of having the right to a nuclear energy program and enjoying popular support for this drive.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry specifically launched this initiative in 2007. In 2009, with cooperation from Ahmadinejad’s cabinet, the Faculty of World Studies was established in Tehran University, headed by Mohammad Marandi, seen speaking in support of the Iranian regime in international media outlets. Activists have gone as far as describing him as affiliated to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the IRGC.
The Tehran University Center for Public Opinion Research was launched under Marandi’s supervision, with Mohseni in charge, to take over the role of launching and literally creating such fabricated polls. Mohseni is allegedly in collaboration with the IRGC Basij paramilitary. This is one of his speeches on the U.S. “Wall Street” movement.
Mohseni was then transferred to the U.S. and using the Iranian regime’s connections he began working at the University of Maryland. From that date forward Mohseni is said to have collaborated with Iranian officials in preparing such polls to be eventually published by the University of Maryland.
Mohseni, along with Parsi and a number of pro-Iran appeasement policy figures, published the first such “fabricated” poll, titled “Public Opinion in America and American on Key International Issues,” in January 2007. They astonishingly went as far as claiming 91 percent of the Iranian people supported the nuclear program and fuel cycle as very important.
In September 2009, as waves of Iranians were in the streets protesting the controversial re-election of Ahmadinejad and demanding their votes back, and the regime responding with a vicious crackdown, Mohseni conveniently prepared another poll claiming 81% of the people consider Ahmadinejad as Iran’s legitimate president.
The obvious question here is: Then why were so many people in the streets?
In February 2010, following months of further repression and killings in Iran’s streets, a new poll claimed 83 percent of the Iranian populace considered the 2009 election to be free and fair.
In October 2012, an even more astounding poll published by Mohseni and his colleagues claimed the wide majority of Iranians, already suffering in poverty, were willing to bear sanctions, war and all the leading hardships, yet unwilling to have domestic nuclear enrichment stopped.
Mohseni explained a question in a conference presenting the poll.
“Which is closer to your opinion:
1- Iran should continue its nuclear enrichment activity even if it results in war.
2- Iran should prevent war even if it means suspending nuclear enrichment activity.
“55 percent say we should continue enriching uranium while 33 percent say preventing war is of higher importance.”
When necessary, the Marandi/Mohseni team will also carry out certain campaigns inside Iran. In 2014 Iran’s hardliners sought to impose gender segregation at worksites and offices, beginning with Tehran’s municipality.
This initiative resulted in widespread protests across Iran, even inside the government and various factions of the ruling apparatus. Mohseni conveniently presented another fabricated poll actually claiming the majority of Iranians essentially support gender segregation “to render more calm among families.”
To conduct a “telephone poll” in a totalitarian state such as Iran on a subject related to the ruling system, and not on which brand of laundry detergent they prefer, is tantamount to conducting a poll in Germany under the Third Reich! Which would have undoubtedly resulted in showing outright support for Hitler.
Considering Iran’s intense crackdown and surveillance apparatus, especially when all secure means of communications are shut down, to believe one can obtain a measure of public opinion through calling Iranians on their landlines and asking them whether they support regime change borders on naiveté if not outright charlatanism.
I am a political/rights activist focusing on Iran & the Middle East. I also write in Al Arabiya English, and contributed to The Federalist, The Hill and Raddington Report. I tweet @HeshmatAlavi

 

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