(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Many people in the United States hold a negative view of two countries, according to a poll by Opinion Research Corporation released by CNN. 82 per cent of respondents believe Iran is either unfriendly or an enemy of the U.S., while 73 per cent feel the same way about North Korea.

Syria is regarded as unfriendly or an enemy of the United States by 54 per cent of respondents, followed by Venezuela with 40 per cent.

Iraq, Iran and North Korea were branded as part of an "axis of evil" by U.S. president George W. Bush in January 2002. Last month, U.S. House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Syria and met with Syrian president Bashar Assad. U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney said Pelosi's trip sent "mixed signals about the policies and the intentions of the United States."

In September 2006 at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez criticized Bush, declaring, "The gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. (...) As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world."

Iran has contended that its nuclear program aims to produce energy, not weapons. In June 2005, former Tehran mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won Iran's presidential election in a run-off over Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani with 61.6 per cent of all cast ballots.

In December 2006, the United Nations (UN) Security Council unanimously voted to impose sanctions against Iran after it failed to stop uranium enrichment. Ahmadinejad claimed the sanctions were illegitimate, and has recently announced his country is successfully enriching uranium—a process needed both to make nuclear weapons and produce electricity—in an "industrial scale."

On May 16, Illinois senator Barack Obama, who is seeking the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 2008, introduced the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act of 2007. The proposed legislation seeks to make it easy for Americans to withdraw investments made in entities doing business with Iran and therefore pressure companies to cut ties with the country. Obama defended his plan, saying, "The Iranian government uses the billions of dollars it earns from its oil and gas industry to build its nuclear program and to fund terrorist groups that export its militaristic and radical ideology to Iraq and throughout the Middle East."

Polling Data

For each of the following countries, please say whether you consider it an ally of the United States, friendly but not an ally, unfriendly, or an enemy of the United States.

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