Biggest danger to world peace?

[Kingreno]

Dutch news today showed that for Europeans the state of Israel is the biggest threat to world peace (59%). In holland the percentage is a staggering 74%!
So is this justified? I think in a way it is, but that is a long story.
My upset about this "poll" was the country that came in second, being the "axis-of-evil"-member Iran. I visited this country 2 years ago and spend over a month there.
Is it so that a majority of people still think of Iran as a fundamentalist paradise? Where women are ordered to wear the burka? Where westerners are seen as the worst kind of animals? Or not?
your views please:)

[smalltalk]

A few years ago, Iran won the World Soccer Championship - in robot football. So they can't be completely backwards.

A friend of mine once claimed, more women would go to the university in Iran than in the US. I was quite sceptic.

This is what the web says. At least it is sounds ambigous enough to be true:
quote:
...[in] Iran, where young women now make up nearly 60 percent of all university entrants although women represent barely half the school-age population.

In a quiet revolution with wide-ranging implications for political and social relations, they are also leaving home as single women in historically high numbers, forsaking their conservative villages and small towns to seek higher education wherever they can get it.

Their self-assured mobility -- an independence of action that their mothers and grandmothers could not even imagine -- represents a grand social experiment whose impact is making itself felt on campus and off.

"In the last two years, the percentage of women students has jumped significantly, and this is a very important signal to our society," said Elaheh Koulai, an administrative dean at Tehran University and a reformist member of Parliament. "The phenomenon will change the country in ways we cannot even predict as they enter the labor market and the professions."

One reason that old taboos against higher education for women have collapsed is that Iranian universities, under the overall control of Muslim religious leaders, offer worried parents strict controls over their daughters' lives on campus. Often, the prohibitions are far more severe than they would have faced at home. Their dress, their visitors, even their music and reading materials are closely monitored. Still, the women say, they are relishing a fresh sense of freedom even as they realize that their newfound access to education does not guarantee them jobs commensurate with their skills.
http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/irnwmnz.htm

[Plux]

My attitude towards Iran is twofold. On the one hand it's hard to imagine that US foreign policy and 'middle east marketing' would not have its consequences for the Iranian attitude towards the west, so there my feelings say that they might have some anti-western policy (although this would be more of a political government reaction than the peoples choice). I also read 'not without my daughter' a few months ago, which gives a very anti-western impression of the country, but it's set in the middle 80's and so can be regarded as obsolete information. I know that things aren't bad at all in the country, a friend of mine also visited last year and was very positive about Iran and its people. What I've learned from her is that religion still plays a great role in daily life, but not so much in social and political respect anymore (I wanted to say 'sociaal-maatschappelijk' but that term does not exist in English, I wonder why :D). What I mean is that when I need to give my first opinion my emotional reaction would be that Iran could be putting any anti-western feelings into practice, but when I think further I think that this is not really the case. It's hard to totally disregard those political propaganda machineries.

[Kingreno]

The feeling in Iran is not totaly anti-western but is totaly against most western governments, in particular the U.S. , Israel and Britain. This can be seen as a logical thing IMO.
In 1978 the puppet shah was deposed bij fundamentalists under Khomeini. This man was the first to adress the utterly unfair economic situation of the country. in short, 5% was getting 95% of the (oil-)money. The shah spend most of it on expensive touristhotels, weaponry (f-14s!!!) and himself.
A mere 6 months later Saddam took a chance and raced towards Irans southern oilfields, backed by the west. We send intel and weapons to Iraq. The East also backed Iraq, with Russia disliking a fundamentalist movement so close to its southern (muslim!) border. Russian weapons and intel thus also went to Baghdad. None of the countries now deny this, but none have said sorry for it either!
Iran won the war but paid a price with a country in ruins and millions dead. No UN-sanction EVER punished the agressor, which in this case is Iraq. This is a primary reason why the fundies are basicly still in charge and the paople still shout "death to USA" on the streets of tehran (they mean the gov, not the people).[eek]

[jack merchant]

Actually, just about anyone who could misread the poll - those taking the poll were (among others) given a list of 15 countries and asked which ones of those they thought constituted A threat to world peace, 59% picking Israel ( what hasn't been reported is whether they were allowed to pick multiple nations - my guess is that they did).

So the claim that people think Israel is the single biggest threat to world peace isn't supported by this particular poll.

As far as I can tell, Iran could become a wonderful country once they ditch the mullahs and the religious police - we can only hope they do so before the mullahs get nukes....

[anarres]

I agree Jack, and have said as much in the CFC thread. It amazes me how people (ab)use statistics to fuel their desires or fears.

[Pastorius]

the biggest danger to world peace:
[shabba]


Seriosly tho:

A quick comparison between the situation in Israel and the one in Iraq:
Since declaring the war won in Iraq, a lot of people have died, among them the "winners".
In Israel, a lot of people have been killed, and still this is not considered a war....