A new nationwide poll of Iran by Terror Free Tomorrow shows that four out of five Iranians want a democratic system instead of the primarily unelected rule of their current regime. Our survey also reveals that if the United States and the international community put an offer of aid and trade with Iran front and center, the Iranian people would respond positively by a large margin. And if the regime doesn’t accept such an offer, Iranians would distance themselves even further from their own government.

Discontent with the current system of government, the economy and isolation from the West is widespread throughout Iran. In this context, nuclear weapons are the lowest priority for the Iranian people. The manifest popular will to live in a country open to the West and to the US, with greater economic opportunity, is a powerful plea from every region and segment of society. Iranians also speak with one voice in rejecting the current autocratic rule of their supreme leader and in courageously asking for democracy instead.

These are among the significant findings of the first uncensored public opinion survey of Iran since President Ahmadinejad took office. The survey was conducted in Farsi by telephone from June 5 to June 18, 2007, with 1,000 interviews covering all 30 provinces of Iran (and a margin of error of 3.1%). The last poll to ask similar controversial questions was conducted in September 2002 by Abbas Abdi inside Iran. He was imprisoned as a result.

Developing nuclear weapons was seen as a very important priority by only 29% of Iranians. By contrast, 88% of Iranians considered improving the Iranian economy a very important priority. 80% of Iranians favor Iran offering full international nuclear inspections and a guarantee not to develop or possess nuclear weapons in return for outside aid.

Moreover, close to 70% of Iranians also favor normal relations and trade with the United States. Indeed, in exchange for normal relations, a majority of Iranians even favor recognizing Israel and Palestine as independent states, ending Iranian support for any armed groups inside Iraq, and giving full transparency by Iran to the US to ensure there are no Iranian endeavors to develop nuclear weapons. Yet the most noteworthy finding of our survey for the future of Iran’s present rulers is the opposition to their current system of government.

Some 61% of Iranians were willing to tell our pollsters—over normal, unsecured telephone lines—that they oppose the current Iranian system of government, in which the supreme leader rules according to religious principles and cannot be chosen or replaced by direct vote of the people.

More tellingly, over 79% of Iranians support a democratic system instead, in which the supreme leader, along with all leaders, can be chosen and replaced by a free and direct vote of the people. Only 11% of Iranians said they would strongly oppose having a political system in which all of their leaders, including the supreme leader, are chosen by popular election.

Iranians across all demographic groups oppose the unelected rule of the supreme leader in favor of electing all their leaders. While these views run stronger in Tehran, they are also held across all provinces of Iran, and in both urban and rural areas.

Terror Free Tomorrow’s survey of Iran demonstrates that the Iranian people are the best ally of the US and the West against the government in Tehran.


Kenneth Ballen is president of Terror Free Tomorrow


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• Karim Sadjadpour says US and EU Must Form Broad Coalition to Engage Tehran
• John R. Bradley says No Regime Change for Iran’s Ethnic Minorities
• Maximilian Terhalle argues that Quid Pro Quo is Best Deal For US and Iran