WASHINGTON, June 16: As many as 70 per cent Pakistanis want Iran to have nuclear weapons, said a survey report released this week. The survey by Terror Free Tomorrow, a non-governmental organisation which is patronized by several powerful US lawmakers, showed that 55 per cent people in Saudi Arabia and Turkey also favoured a nuclear-armed Iran. The NGO — which has Senator John McCain and several members of the 9/11 commission on its advisory board — commissioned the wide-ranging poll to learn about attitudes towards Iran’s nuclear programme among its neighbours and also to gauge anti-West sentiment in these countries.

As many as 68 per cent in Pakistan, 46 per cent in Saudi Arabia and 44 per cent in Turkey said that they would prefer the United States to accept a nuclear Iran rather than intervene to prevent it.

“I don’t think they really support nuclear weapons in Iran,” Wayne White, former deputy director of the State Department’s Middle East intelligence shop told the Washington Times. “It’s probably more of a pushback against the US, basically saying that they’d mind that a lot less than more US involvement in the region.”

The survey also shows that anti-American sentiment in the Muslim countries has reached startling levels, but positive US policies like disaster-relief efforts can help reverse the trend.

When asked how they viewed the United States, 89 per cent in Saudi Arabia, 84 per cent in the United Arab Emirates, 71 per cent in Turkey and 64 per cent in Pakistan answered ‘unfavourable’. Additionally, 66 per cent of Pakistanis opposed the US-led fight against terrorism.

Ken Ballen, president of Terror Free Tomorrow and a former federal prosecutor and counsel to the Iran-Contra committee, said the poll results were ‘startling’ and showed that radical anti-Western views were becoming the consensus in the Muslim world. “US policy-makers need to take these opinions into account. I know we don’t make policies based on polls data, but we need to try to understand why these radical ideas are gaining traction and figure out if our policies are being counterproductive,” said Mr Ballen.

According to the polls, 67 per cent in both Pakistan and Turkey and 65 per cent in Saudi Arabia viewed a series of recently published blasphemous Danish cartoons as evidence that the West is antagonistic towards Islam.

Mr Ballen said there was ‘a silver lining’ to the poll results. “Positive US policies like earthquake relief in Pakistan and tsunami aid in Indonesia improved pro-Western attitudes.”

The polls showed that US aid promoted a more favourable view of the United States among 75 per cent of Pakistanis and 63 per cent of Indonesians.

Among Palestinians, 68 per cent had an unfavourable opinion of the United States, but 60 per cent said that they wanted the US to do more to help resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Mr White said: “This seems confusing because the US is seen as such a big ally of Israel. The Palestinians might not like a lot of the things that the US does, but they know if there is anyone on the globe who can talk Israel into being more reasonable, it’s Washington.”