WASHINGTON (Intercept) – When President Donald Trump decertified the Iran nuclear deal last week, the push among Washington’s Iran hawks to scuttle the agreement entirely was already well underway.
In their latest maneuver, right-wing hawks have turned to drumming up public support for effectively ditching the accord — or at least creating the impression that there is public support for it.
Over the last week, stories reported by media outlets such as The Hill, Breitbart, Conservative Review, and The Tower purported to show that a strong majority of Americans supported renegotiating the deal.
Citing a Harvard-Harris poll — part of a project co-directed by Mark Penn, a pollster and political strategist — the reports said that 70% of respondents believed the U.S. should renegotiate the accord, including 85% of Republicans and 57% of Democrats.
Although the story briefly went viral on right-wing media outlets and among opponents of the deal, a closer examination of the poll question on which these findings are based raises credibility questions about the results.
Experts on political polling expressed shock at the framing of the Harvard-Harris poll questions underlying the reports of public opinion.
"This is a blatantly biased question,” said Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University.
"It is about as bad as it gets — whoever designed this survey was clearly aiming to produce a finding that the public wants to renegotiate the deal.”
Per the published details of the Harvard-Harris poll, the question on which the results were based was:
Some people say that the Iran nuclear deal is not perfect and the Iranians are building up their nuclear capability secretly, but we should not rock the boat now and just let it all slide along. Others say if Iranians are not compliant we have to call them out on it and push to renegotiate the deal with real verification. What would be your preferred course of action?
1) Push to renegotiate the deal now requesting improved verification mechanisms or
2) Keep the current deal in place and leave the issue alone for now?
This is troubling because it posits a strange choice between two narratives with the same dubious premise.
One of the options reads that "some people” are claiming that the Iranian government is building a secret nuclear capability — which would be a brazen violation of the nuclear deal — but suggests keeping the deal anyway.
The other option also suggests Iran is not compliant with the deal, and that the accord should be renegotiated to get "real verification.” That is, both courses are based on the assumption that Iran is out of compliance with the deal.
The reality is that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which officially monitors compliance, has repeatedly verified that Iran is adhering to the terms of the deal — a position reportedly supported by U.S. intelligence agencies, American military officials and the European Union.
Trump’s own Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has gone so far as to begrudgingly admit that Iran is in "technical compliance,” and advocated behind the scenes for Trump to certify the deal, according to the Wall Street Journal.