For the third year in a row, a greater percentage of Arab youth have named Iran as their country’s biggest ally, according to the eighth annual ASDA’A Burson Marsteller Arab Youth Survey. In 2012 and 2013, only one percent of youth in 16 countries said Iran was their country’s biggest ally, compared with 13 percent of youth in 2016. Young people in the Levant were more likely to consider Iran an ally than in North Africa and the in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.
Arab youth were divided on their views of the Iran nuclear deal that was announced in July 2015. Some 45 percent said they support the agreement, while 39 percent said they oppose it. About 17 percent of respondents said that the threat of a nuclear Iran is the biggest obstacle facing the Middle East. Nine other obstacles were cited by a higher percentage of youth. Half of respondents said the rise of ISIS was the greatest obstacle.
The survey was conducted by Penn Schoen Berland in 16 Arab countries. The firm conducted 3,500 face-to-face interviews from January 11 to February 22, 2016 with Arab men and women in the age group of 18 and 24. The following are key results related to Iran and Sunni-Shiite tensions because Iran is the largest Shiite country in the region.
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