Over 4 in 10 Americans say bomb Iran to halt its nuke program

Washington - A new You-Gov poll finds 44 percent of Americans favor, and 35 percent opposed to a bomb strike against Iran to stop its nuclear program.

The poll also finds America’s deep political divide to be alive and well on the subject of Iran, with far more Republicans favoring an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities than Democrats.

“The American public is generally at one end in these sorts of [transatlantic] surveys about the use of force in the Middle East, with the Germans always the most shy about military  intervention,” said Joel Faulkner Rogers, director of YouGov-Cambridge (UK).

He added: “But this [poll] also finds these really big gaps between Democrats and Republicans when the question is Iran.”

Indeed, two-thirds of Republicans support bombing Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities as opposed to 38 percent of Democrats, the poll finds.

A similar 30-point gap exists on the question of whether Iran is trying to build a bomb, the Christian Science Monitor reports.

While 56 percent of Democrats say they believe that it is Iran’s goal, a whopping 86 percent of Republicans hold that view.

YouGov released the survey just as the international debate intensifies over how to address Iran’s nuclear program, and in particular over how close Israel is to launching air strikes against  Iran’s nuclear facilities.