Seven months after it was first announced, the nuclear deal with Iran remains deeply unpopular in the United States, with nearly twice as many Americans opposing the agreement as supporting it, according to a poll released Wednesday by Gallup.
The poll, conducted from February 3-7, found that 57% of Americans disapprove of the nuclear accord while only 30% back it. Overall, 9% of Republicans and 30% of independents support the deal, compared with a bare majority– 51%– of Democrats. The agreement is opposed by 80% of Republicans, 53% of independents, and 38% of Democrats.
Iran also continues to have extremely low favorability ratings in the U.S., with just 14% of Americans holding a positive opinion of the Islamic Republic. Only Syria and North Korea are more unpopular.
Iran’s official expressions of anti-Americanism have only increased after the nuclear deal’s implementation, which followed successful efforts in September to block a Senate vote on the accord, despite widespread support by the American electorate for congressional oversight.
Tens of thousands of Iranians paraded through Tehran last week and chanted “Death to America” in honor of the 37th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. Some revelers mockingly dressed up as the 10 U.S. sailors Iran seized and held overnight on January 12. While the circumstances surrounding the Americans’ capture and their treatment have raised concerns that Iran violated international law, Khamenei praised the incident as “God’s deed.”
The New York Times reported in November that official anti-American activity was becoming more prevalent in Iran in the wake of the nuclear deal. The Anti-Defamation League’s national director, Jonathan Greenblatt, observed a month later that Tehran’s anti-American policies, which led to the recent arrests of a U.S. citizen and resident, the sentencing of an American journalist to jail, and a surge of cyber-attacks against U.S. officials, have intensified along with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s rhetoric.
Late last year, Khamenei accused the U.S. of creating ISIS and seeking to destroy Islamic civilization. In November, he blamed America for the Paris terror attacks and claimed that the U.S. sought to infiltrate Iran using “money and sexual attractions.”
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