WASHINGTON, July 12: Despite tensions between the United States and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, most Iranians do not believe the two countries will go to war in the next decade, according to a poll released on Wednesday.

The unusual telephone survey of 810 adults conducted from outside Iran by a US research firm revealed a country divided on many issues but united on the role Iran should play in the region and in opposition to Israel.

Fifty-six per cent said Iran should lead ‘diplomatically and militarily’ in the Middle East.

When asked if the state of Israel was illegitimate and should not exist, 67 per cent agreed and only nine per cent disagreed.

The Reader’s Digest/Zogby International poll was conducted between May 18 and June 1.

Respondents were all Farsi-speaking Iranians — 470 men and 340 women — living within the country’s borders.

The survey team included 30 Iranian, Farsi-speaking interviewers.

US President George W. Bush, who lumped Iran with Iraq and North Korea in ‘an axis of evil’, has said he considers Tehran’s nuclear programme a threat to world peace but has emphasised the use of diplomacy to resolve the standoff.

Almost two-thirds of the Iranians polled said they did not expect a military confrontation with the United States within the next 10 years, and 41 per cent said making the national economy operate more efficiently was more important than nuclear capability.

Only 27 per cent thought Iran’s top priority should be to develop an arsenal of nuclear weapons.

When it came to their view of the United States, there was a generational split.

Older Iranians were much more likely than younger ones to admire the American people and society.

Pollster John Zogby said the divide was probably due in part to a lack of exposure to Americans over the past two decades, in which the United States has had no diplomatic or other ties to Iran. “The poll illustrates the impact of 25 years of separation,” Zogby said.

Iranians with access to satellite television or the internet were significantly more likely than their ‘unconnected’ counterparts to identify the United States as the country they admired most, according to the poll.—Reuters