Arab Opinion Toward Iran 2019/2020

Mehran Kamrava

Professor of Government at Georgetown University in Qatar and Head of the Iranian Studies Unit at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies. Kamrava has published extensively, including, most recently, How Islam Rules in Iran: Theology and Theocracy in the Islamic Republic (Cambridge University Press, 2024); Righteous Politics: Power and Resilience in Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2023); A Dynastic History of Iran: From the Qajars to the Pahlavis (Cambridge University Press, 2022); Triumph and Despair: In Search of Iran’s Islamic Republic (Oxford University Press, 2022); A Concise History of Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2020); Troubled Waters: Insecurity in the Persian Gulf (Cornell University Press, 2018); Inside the Arab State (Oxford University Press, 2018); The Impossibility of Palestine: History, Geography, and the Road Ahead (Yale University Press, 2016); Qatar: Small State, Big Politics (Cornell University Press, 2015); The Modern Middle East: A Political History since the First World War, 3^rd ed. (University of California Press, 2013); and Iran’s Intellectual Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2008). His edited books include The Sacred Republic: Power and Institutions in Iran (2023); The Routledge Handbook of Persian Gulf Politics (2020); The Great Game in West Asia: Iran, Turkey, and the Southern Caucasus (2017); Fragile Politics: Weak States in the Greater Middle East (2016); Beyond the Arab Spring: The Evolving Ruling Bargain in the Middle East (2015); The Political Economy of the Persian Gulf (2012); The Nuclear Question in the Middle East (2012); and The International Politics of the Persian Gulf (2011). His personal website is: mehran kamrava.com.

Hamideh Dorzadeh

Hamideh is the Coordinator of the Iranian Studies Unit at the Arab Center for Policy Studies and Research. She received her Bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University and is currently pursuing her MA in Women, Society and Development program at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. She supports the Head of the unit and is the focal point for communication between the Iranian Studies Unit, other departments and external entities. Hamideh is in charge of coordinating all the logistical needs of the unit and oversees the unit’s online newsletter.

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Iran has a serious image problem in the Arab world. According to the most recent data made available by the Arab Opinion Index, a majority of citizens in the Arab world view Iran in negative terms. Not only is Iranian foreign policy viewed negatively across the Arab world, Iran consistently ranks high as one of the biggest threats to the Arab world. Iran’s nuclear program is perceived as a source of regional instability, its policy toward Palestine, Syria, and Yemen is considered as highly disruptive to regional peace, and the country is seen as a major source of regional sectarianism and ethnic separatist tendencies across the Arab world.

This paper examines Arab attitudes toward Iran as revealed through the 2019-2020 and 2017-2018 Arab Opinion Index, compiled from public opinion surveys in thirteen Arab countries by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies. The countries surveyed in 2019-2020 included Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Tunisia. Based on the data in the surveys, some of the key findings are as follows:

Since 2011, Iranian foreign policy has steadily been seen in the Arab world as a major source of instability and as a rising threat. In most Arab countries, Iran is viewed as the third largest threat to the Arab world, following Israel and the United States, though in Saudi Arabia nearly twice as many people consider Iran as a major threat as compared to Israel.
While mostly supportive of the Iranian nuclear program prior to 2011, today most Arabs approve of the American withdrawal from the comprehensive nuclear agreement that was signed between Iran and the EU+3 in 2015.
Nearly twice as many Arabs consistently consider Iranian policies toward Palestine, Syria, and Yemen to be bad or very bad as compared to those who consider them to be good or very good.
A majority of Arabs believe Iran fuels sectarian and ethnic separatist tendencies in the Arab world.

Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies