Key takeaways from new polling on Iran’s foreign policy and regional role

The below pieces break down key takeaways from a new survey conducted by Stasis Consulting among Iranians living in Iran on Tehran’s foreign policy, regional influence, and diplomatic relations. The poll also covers President Masoud Pezeshkian’s job approval and select youth-related issues as part of a longer-term effort to track national sentiment. For a more detailed look at the findings, please see this piece on the Middle East Institute website or find the full results from Stasis here.
 

Public opinion in Iran: Foreign policy contradictions between diplomacy and military action

Arash Ghafouri

A new public opinion poll finds the Iranian population in overwhelming, if contradictory, agreement: a majority say the country’s economic problems stem from the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy decisions, while citizens favor a continued Iranian military presence in the Middle East, approve of a new nuclear agreement with Western powers, and seek to normalize diplomatic relations with the US. These are the main findings of the latest survey on Iran’s foreign policy, carried out by Stasis Consulting between Sept. 21 and Oct. 3, 2024, among 1,189 Iranian citizens living in Iran throughout all 31 provinces.

Over the last 20 years, Iranian foreign policy, and specifically Tehran’s nuclear program, has had an outsized impact on daily life in the country. For two decades, power players, most notably Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as well as, at times, the various presidents, have held the key to the development or delay of the nuclear program. Since 2009, citizens have increasingly come to see a nuclear agreement with Western powers, principally the US, as vital to resolving the country’s economic problems. Iranian citizens believe that normalizing diplomatic relations with the West and reaching a nuclear deal will help address pressing issues, like the impact of international sanctions, Iran’s devalued currency, and inflation.

This 2024 Stasis Consulting survey follows up on a November 2013 study conducted by IPOS (which the author previously managed) that asked whether respondents support a nuclear deal. Back in November 2013, 65 percent of Iranians already supported such an agreement, and indeed Hassan Rouhani won Iran’s presidential election that June on the hope that he could deliver a nuclear deal and solve some of the pressing economic issues facing Iran’s citizens. Only 11 percent of Iranians opposed a nuclear deal in 2013, so after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was reached in 2015, Mr. Rouhani’s approval rating hit an all-time personal high of 67 percent in February 2016 (link).

Back in 2015 and 2016, another major factor came into play for Iranians as well: the impact of the Arab Spring uprisings and the rise of religious extremism in the region. The downfall of some of the long-time dictators in the Middle East and North Africa turned into a protracted battle against ISIS for control of the region, particularly in Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, where Iran ultimately proclaimed victory following the intervention of both its official Quds Force and its proxies. The regime’s position, then and now, is that deploying troops abroad prevents the need to fight the enemy at home.

Whether true or not, by taking credit for defeating ISIS, the regime was able to tap into a deep reservoir of nationalist sentiment. The regime broadcast statements evoking Iran’s ancient empire, telling the people that Iran once again had access to the Mediterranean Sea. Through its proxy groups, including the Houthis in Yemen, the Shi’a militias in Iraq, Hamas in Gaza, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as its proxy government in Syria, Iran had regained its status as a superpower, the regime claimed, and could once again dominate all kinds of decisions in the region — at least, that was the official narrative anyway.

In this new survey, most respondents say they support Iran’s military presence in the Middle East (61 percent) and that they believe Iran’s military presence in the Middle East makes them safer at home (69 percent). Apparently, for the Iranian public, their perception that the country’s foreign policy strategy has caused domestic economic issues (78 percent) does not conflict with these previous views. A larger share of the population also says that Iran’s foreign policy is contributing to tensions in the Middle East (43 percent, compared to just 18 percent who say the opposite). The relationship between military and diplomatic activity is therefore unclear in the Iranian political imagination, and thus they see no connection between Iran’s military interventionism and its diplomatic disappointments.

Arash Ghafouri is the CEO of Stasis Consulting.

Photo by Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images

Polling provides insights into Iranians’ contradictory opinions on foreign policy, economic problems

Alex Vatanka

The main results from the latest Stasis Consulting poll among Iranians living in Iran are not unanticipated as such but there are a few surprises. That Iranians overwhelmingly believe that the country’s foreign policy is the cause for the economic problems of ordinary citizens is accepted even among many of the regime’s diehard supporters. Nor is it surprising that many Iranians, particularly among the youth, are pessimistic about the future of Iran and are looking to emigrate. But the poll also provides insights into the contradictory opinions held by Iranians. Most notably, while a majority believe that Iranian foreign policy is the cause of the country's economic problems, they also back some of its key aspects, like support for the Arab militant proxy groups that are part of the so-called “Axis of Resistance” and Iran's military presence in Syria.

The costs of the Axis of Resistance 

Forty-three percent of respondents to the survey believe that Iran’s foreign policy is contributing to tensions in the Middle East as opposed to 18 percent who have the opposite view. And yet the fact that 69 percent support the idea that Tehran's military presence in the Middle East keeps them safer at home — in line with the regime’s doctrine of “forward defense,” aimed at keeping wars away from the Iranian homeland — is notable. This opinion is essentially inconsistent with the stated desire of the majority of those polled to see less tensions in Iran’s foreign relations, including the 68 percent of respondents who hope to see a normalization of ties with the United States and a majority (61 percent) who support a new nuclear agreement with world powers.

According to the survey, 60 percent of Iranians back Tehran’s policy of providing military support to its proxies. As far as American policy is concerned, “militant proxies” and “terrorists” are more or less synonymous, with barely any distinction made between the two groups. The US Department of State is responsible for managing the list of “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” (FTO). Some of the most prominent militant movements that are typically assumed to act as Iran’s proxies are on the FTO list, including Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Kata’ib Hezbollah, and Asa’ib Ahl-e Haq. In other words, for the United States, the issue of Iran’s proxies is of the greatest concern as it is viewed as an extension of the menace of terrorism, and will therefore remain a top US priority going forward. 

And when it comes the divergent perceptions of Iran’s proxies, perhaps there is an opportunity for Washington to help Iranians see the groups as so many people across the Arab World do, as a violent, repressive, and often corrupt force in their societies.

In terms of countering this phenomenon, since the mid-1990s, US sanctions have been the critical tool for disrupting terrorist financial networks, denying access to US banks, and deterring financiers. While US sanctions have not significantly influenced Iran’s relationship with its proxies, which overwhelmingly operate in the Arab World, the high costs that the Iranian economy pays for this sort of foreign policy strategy is undeniable — a key point acknowledged by survey respondents, 78 percent of whom said Iran’s foreign policy is a cause of its economic problems.

Going forward, Iran’s proxy model has several potential weaknesses that could be exploited by the US and its partners. First, the Iranian economy is highly fragile. The regime’s backing for the proxy model, including the transfer of funds and weaponry, has persistently resulted in rising economic costs for Tehran. Looking ahead, for example, it is doubtful that Iran will have the economic capacity and popular support among Iranians to help finance the reconstruction of Gaza or Lebanon, where Iran’s proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, along with the Palestinian and Lebanese people more broadly, have experienced such great destruction as a result of Israel’s military operations.  

Second, Iran’s Arab proxies in the region often operate on precarious grounds. In Iraq, for example, nationalism and anti-Iran sentiments among segments of Iraqi society are a reality despite Tehran’s great advances in the country since 2003. The deployment of pro-Iran proxies in Iraq and further west in the Levant have been driven by two, but lesser, policy goals. First, to provide Iran with a political footing. This is best exemplified in Iraq, where pro-Iran Iraqi militias are an important political tool Iran can utilize when necessary. Second, and this is a lesser national security interest, to cultivate the proxy model against Israel and the US. Again, this is an ideological choice as opposed to a national security imperative. This important distinction is not reflected in the polling, where only 25 percent of Iranians reportedly support the idea of Iran and Israel establishing diplomatic relations. One would have thought such a scenario would have greater backing among Iranians given that the state of the economy and Iran’s isolation are the primary grievances Iranians have against the regime’s foreign policy agenda and questions linked to US-Iran and Iran-Israel dynamics and the value of the proxy model are all focal points of Tehran’s predicament.

Why all the gloom among Iranians?  

On the domestic front, 77 percent of those polled believe that Iranian youth are pessimistic about their future in Iran and 72 percent say youth would rather emigrate than remain in the country. Again, this is not surprising. In the last four decades Iran has experienced one of the highest rates of brain drain among countries around the world, as intellectuals, professionals, and students have left to live abroad. For the longest period of time, officials in Tehran ignored and even encouraged emigration by the elite. Those emigrating were largely a group the Iranian regime found politically insubordinate and it was often more convenient to have them leave rather than stay in Iran and pose a political challenge to the reactionary and militant Islamist system. However, as the socio-economic costs and consequences of elite emigration have become all become too clear — with one official estimating it at as much as $150 billion per year — and therefore hard to ignore, the leadership has begun to articulate concerns and issue policies to combat the phenomenon. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has himself called officials that encourage the youth at universities to emigrate “traitors.”

Emigration among Iran’s elite is not a new phenomenon though. It began immediately after the 1979 revolution, but the rate at which Iranians are leaving has been accelerating. On a regional level, Iran is behind Turkey and the Gulf states in attracting educated talent for its economy. This reality clearly hurts Iranian nationalist sensibilities as much as it handicaps Iran’s economic growth. The question is not if Iran can compete for talent, but rather how badly the country will perform as it seeks to prevent its elite from leaving for other destinations with more attractive conditions to offer.  

Iranian officials readily admit that the regime has been woefully slow to recognize the considerable socio-economic costs of “elite brain drain,” but also the potential benefits of attracting foreign capital and talent. For example, since the early 1990s — beginning with the Rafsanjani government — Tehran has paid lip-service to the need to bring Iranians residing abroad back to Iran. And yet very little has been achieved despite the creation of a presidential taskforce during the Rouhani government to advance this agenda. The potential benefits from a large-scale return of Iranian elite to their home country could be massive.  

Iran’s brain drain is a result of a number of principal factors. The repressive political system that tolerates little dissent has always been a driver behind emigration across social classes. But the recent widening of the gap between Iran and other economies — thanks also to sanctions — has made emigration doubly attractive. Senior specialists that aspire to engage professionally with counterparts around the world find Iran’s isolation and lack of integration with the global economy to be a huge hurdle. Reducing this gap is a colossal challenge that will take years to rectify. Meanwhile, for such a process to even begin requires fundamental political change in the way the Islamic Republic operates — and at the very top of that list is the Iranian regime’s foreign policy agenda. 

Alex Vatanka is the director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute and a Senior Fellow with MEI’s Black Sea Program.

Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images